WAITING FOR DAYLIGHT
Domestic violence monodrama for soprano and orchestra – Meet the Composer Louisville “New Residency”
With music by Steve Rouse and text by Anne Shelby, Waiting for Daylight tells the story of a woman who begins courtship full of dreams of a peaceful, happy life together with her "man with gentle hands." But even at the outset, her dream is suspect, as when the man says, "You are mine now. You belong to me." Before long her new husband begins to use physical force, and we witness the cyclical nature of the alternation of violence and apologies, violence and repentance, etc. At the peak of the drama, the woman is faced with one of the most horrifying dilemmas imaginable: watch her husband beat and abuse her children or shoot him. She chooses the latter in a blind, sudden reaction to the terror of the moment. Afterward, she is shocked and traumatized. In the final "scene" she sings from prison, where she "waits for daylight" and longs to be with her children again, "safe."
Soprano Edith Davis, Music Director Max Bragado-Darman, and the Louisville Orchestra premiered the work on April 4, 1997. Premiere related events included efforts by a number of local agencies, coordinated by the University of Louisville's Women's Center. A pre-concert discussion event led by local TV personality Dawn Ghee brought together several of the women of the BOSCH group (women imprisoned for killing their abusers) who had been granted clemency by former Governor Brereton Jones. (The Governor had been drawn to their plight by the group's patchwork quilt of "pain" and through the efforts of activist Marsha Weinstein.) Two other local TV talk shows devoted programs to the premiere and its issues.
At the conclusion of the performance of Waiting for Daylight three of the women of the BOSCH group approached Resident Composer Steve Rouse to tell him that he “got it right,” that they “felt the terror all over again,” and thanked him for “caring enough to write a work like this.”