Woman in an Ermine Collar
Lyrics by Ruth Kessler
mezzo-soprano, cello, piano
Commissioned by Leslie Jacobson Kaye, Mezzo-soprano
Woman in an Ermine Collar
Music by Oliver Caplan
Poetry by Ruth Kessler
Instrumentation: Mezzo-soprano, cello, piano
Duration: 8’00”
Year: 2022
The year is 1909. American artist Kathleen McEnery Cunningham, age 22, lives in Paris. Excited by the women’s rights movement, Cunningham paints the portrait Woman in an Ermine Collar, challenging gender roles of the time with her vision of the modern women: strong, confident, active.
Later, in the early 2000’s, Israeli-American poet Ruth Kessler views Cunningham’s painting at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY, where the artist moved after her European travels. Ruth, also a Rochester resident, is riveted by the woman’s commanding, yet elusive presence. And so, Ruth writes a poem, “Woman in an Ermine Collar,” which becomes part of her 2013 collection Fire Ashes Wings, reimagining legendary women from art, literature and mythology.
Move forward a little more to 2021, when my dear friend Leslie Jacobson Kaye approached me to commission a new work for her spring 2022 recital. Leslie was building her program around the theme of women’s voices, which led us to Ruth, who I had collaborated with previously. Ruth’s poem stirred something deep in our hearts, and we knew it was “the one.”
The result is this piece: a song inspired by a poem, inspired by a painting, inspired by a woman in Paris, so mesmerizing that the depiction of her gaze still captivates over a century later.
Woman in an Ermine Collar
Perhaps doubt has painted the darkness around you.
That ermine and lace still corseting you in your age but the looming lamp of your face, in your eyes a wistful resolve, and ahead – a door, a desire, a distance to enter.
In your bag you have already packed contradictions, questions, impatience; one hand on the hip in defiance, your gaze sailing toward a different horizon –along its seam vernal voyages bloom.
Black-hatted, buckle-shod pilgrim, in a moment you will leave hesitations behind, board some train for The New, pounce on life as you must, (we are here on the platform –the extras –watching)…
Already you’re Leaving, breaking away to follow no road signs to the uncharted chances churning around you.
Towering traveler –
Oliver Caplan | music@olivercaplan.com | 617.894.0359 | www.olivercaplan.com
What road will you take? Will you ever look back?
Who are you?
©2022 Oliver Caplan Music ASCAP
-Ruth Kessler
Woman in an Ermine Co!ar
Lyrics by Ruth Kessler
Music by Oliver Caplan
one mf hand on the hip in de fi - ance, - your mp gaze sail ing, - sail -ing toward a dif fer - -ent ho -
hind, be hind,
you
We p are here on the plat form, - We are here on the plat form, -
We are here on the plat form, - the ex tras - watch ing, - watch ing, - watch ing, -
We