Overview:
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- Queen Clara is about the roller-coaster life of Clara Barton, a radical feminist with a passionate personal life who founded the American Red Cross.
- Composed by Mary D. Watkins with libretto by Lance Belville.
- The opera has been workshopped by Goat Hall Opera Company and Z Space Studio in San Francisco, and by the Oakland Opera Company in Oakland, CA, and the Berkeley Arts Center in Berkeley, CA.
About Clara Barton:
Clara Barton (1821-1912) is best known as the founder of the American Red Cross. A radical feminist, she battled the indifference of army generals, the hostility of the press, fears that she was going insane like her sister Dolly, the restrictive sexual standards of her time, and the bureaucracy of the Red Cross itself.
She was one of the first women employed by the U.S. Civil Service and the first woman to reach the killing fields of the Civil War where she started a combat zone nursing service – unheard of in the U.S. Army of her time. She later brought the International Red Cross from the battlefields of Europe to the U.S. and established the American Red Cross.
She practiced free love, never marrying, and had her last affair when she was well into her 80’s with her male assistant, 40 years her junior. She lost her position at the Red Cross because of her affair.
Plot Summary:
The opera is set in the mind of Clara, who is struggling with memories of her career, the recent war, and her mad sister Dolly. In a flashback to the beginning of her career, we see Clara working as a staff member at the Patent Office in Washington, D.C. She sees the wounded and dying soldiers from the first battles of the Civil War being brought to Washington and dumped in federal offices and churches. Horrified, Clara collects supplies and fights her way through the Army’s bureaucracy and prejudice to bring the supplies to the front. She organizes a nursing corps, working side by side with doctors in the blood and filth of the field hospitals.
After the war, Clara Barton becomes a controversial figure for her unladylike energy while fighting Congress for reimbursement of her expenses. She is also deeply depressed. Eventually, with the aid of Fanny Gage, she organizes a speaking tour in which she lectures about her war experiences.
The opera ends with an eighty-something year old Clara still hurrying through the night to the aid of flood victims. Hubble, her former young lover evokes a final image of her: “The light of a great soul that has come out of the darkness – bringing comfort and healing. The light that banishes all sorrows.”
Production History:
Queen Clara started out as a play written by Lance Belville. The play was produced by the Great American History Theatre in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and toured nationally. The idea to turn the play into an opera was born when Mary D. Watkins met Belville at a workshop at the New Music Wing of the Z Space Studio in San Francisco. The writing of the opera was supported by the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the Marin Arts Council of California, the Blue Mountain Arts Center in New York, and Z Space in San Francisco.
Portions of the opera have been given public performances by Goat Hall Opera Company and Z Space Studio in San Francisco, and by the Oakland Opera Company in Oakland, CA, and the Berkeley Arts Center in Berkeley, CA.