LEAVING GATSBY

LEAVING GATSBY
Monodrama for Soprano and Piano
on a Libretto by Caitlin Vincent

Publisher
E. C. Schirmer Music Company

Catalog Number
TBD

Order : Print
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Order : Download
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Description
At the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is murdered in his pool by George Wilson, a mechanic who thinks Gatsby killed his wife Myrtle in a car accident. In reality, it was Gatsby’s lover Daisy who was driving the car – and unbeknownst to her, Myrtle was her husband Tom’s mistress. In Fitzgerald’s version of events, Daisy and Tom leave New York before hearing about Gatsby’s murder. And the reader is simply left wondering . . . how did Daisy react to Myrtle’s death? And why did she leave with Tom instead of staying with Gatsby?

Set in the minutes before Daisy leaves New York, LEAVING GATSBY provides a glimpse into the mind and motivations of Fitzgerald’s most complicated heroine. As Daisy struggles to choose between the past and the future, LEAVING GATSBY asks whether we can ever truly escape our past – or our mistakes.

The monodrama begins with Daisy packing for her trip to Europe at Tom’s insistence. As she attempts to persuade herself the trip is ‘just what she needs,’ Daisy is overcome with traumatic flashbacks of running down Myrtle, interspersed with memories of her early courtship with Gatsby. Shifting to the present, Daisy evaluates her decision to marry Tom, acknowledging the bitterness caused by his constant philandering. Although she is no longer the youthful Daisy that Gatsby desires, Daisy realizes she would still rather live in the past with him than stay with Tom. But she is unable to escape her flashbacks of Myrtle’s brutal death – or the realization that Gatsby has seen her as she truly is: the kind of person who can kill a woman and simply drive away. Daisy decides to leave New York after all, hoping the time apart will help both her and Gatsby forget that night.

As indicated above, LEAVING GATSBY exists in a soprano-piano version suitable for performance in an art song type of recital setting, and before publication will exist in a soprano-chamber ensemble version suitable for staged operatic performance.

Text
Leaving Gatsby

Vocal Range B 3 : C 6	Duration 30′ 00″
Vocal Tessitura G 4 : G 5

Year of Composition 2022	First Performance TBD
	First Performers Laura Strickling, soprano Daniel Schlosberg, piano

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Art Songs