Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia (1983–99)

Ophelia’s Song

Women have loved before as I love now

Spring

“And who”, the American composer Jake Heggie asks, “is Ophelia but an extraordinary young woman – pushed,    pulled and used in a world dominated by men – seeking connection and agonizing over love? In the early 20th century such a young woman might have turned to poetry by Edna St Vincent Millay. So I did just that.” What he did, in fact, was to add three new Millay settings to Ophelia’s Song, the words and music of which he had written 16 years earlier, to complete a cycle of four Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia. All three of the songs to be performed today (Not in a Silver Casket is omitted) are set with the spontaneous lyricism and the accessible harmonies that were to make his operas, beginning with Dead Man Walking in 2000, so phenomenally popular.