Returning: the Ordeal of Olive Oatman

Returning: the Ordeal of Olive Oatman is a new opera in three acts with music by Edmund Cionek and libretto by Maryanne Bertollo. The premiere concert reading with Gerald Steichen, musical director and Jessica Medoff, stage director, was at the National Opera Cener, NYC, on October 2, 2023 and was sponsored by Tribeca New Music with generous private donations.

Based on the true story of a Mormon girl taken captive by Native Americans, the drama takes place in the Southwestern USA in 1851. The opera depicts the struggles of Olive Oatman once she is returned to white society. Encouraged by charismatic charlatan Reverend Royal B. Stratton and her brother Lorenzo, Olive tours America speaking of her time as an adopted daughter of the Mohave. But are her words her own? Olive must learn to regain her true voice, and heal the fractures in her soul, as she goes from popular concert speaker to wife of respected rancher John Brant Fairchild. Only when she is reunited with the Mohave Chief who acted as her father, does Olive have the courage to reclaim what her heart truly values. Along her life’s journey she is helped by down-to-earth madam and feminist Sarah Bowman, aka “The Great Western”. The opera is a homage to Olive and to all women, of every era, who must make difficult choices in their search for an authentic self. The haunting score combines Western music inspired by the period with Native American influences.

Performance requirements:
Principals:
Olive Oatman: Lyric Soprano, woman in her late teens
Lorenzo Oatman: Tenor, her brother, a few years older
Reverend Royal Stratton: Bass – Baritone, concert promoter & reverend, middle-aged:
John Brant Fairchild: Baritone, rancher, husband of Olive, late 40s
The Great Western aka Sarah Bowman: Mezzo Soprano, mezzo-frontier madam, in her 30s or older
Male Chorus: TBB, 3 parts, 6 voices minimum

Duration:
100 minutes

Performance materials
Piano/vocal score
Returning is currently under revision.
Links to video of Premiere Reading at the National Opera Center (live)

Highlight reel (10 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quPu3z50ARA
Act 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3i3FTs4DOs
Act 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut8-OXxnEFk
Act 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rra5ZN4T0mo

Interview with Maryanne Bertollo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6YiuJN9i24

Premiere reading Synopsis
Act I. Fort Yuma: Chorus representing soldiers sing about what happened to the Oatman family, as Lorenzo demands to see Olive. The Great Western, a respected madam who operates near the fort, explains Olive is being prepared to meet him. Olive, shy and hesitant, enters at last. She and Lorenzo joyfully reunite–then Lorenzo see she has a Native American tattoo, blue and prominent, on her chin. He tries to put aside his disgust, encouraged by The Great Western. After The Great Western and the chorus dance and sing, extolling the virtues of survival, Olive tells Lorenzo her Mohave nickname. It is Santsa, meaning Rotten Vagina. She adds that all Mohave adults are given explicit, often rude, nicknames, as a sign of affection. Lorenzo is appalled. Olive senses his disapproval; she sings of her longing to return to her “real” family, the Mohave. Having no other choice, Olive leaves with Lorenzo, returning to a “respectable” life.

Act II. Scene I. A parlor in Albany, New York. Charismatic reverend and concert promoter Royal Stratton tries to persuade Olive that she should go on a lecture tour. He wishes her to deliberately sensationalize her experience, for money and fame. She protests, finding the idea horrifying. However, she is convinced to accept Stratton’s offer by Lorenzo, whose farm has failed and who desperately needs cash.

Scene II: Public hall in Albany. Olive speaks of her time with the Mohave, doing everything she can to stress their kindness. When the crowd murmurs their dissatisfaction, Olive changes her tone, prompted to do so by Stratton. Reluctantly she speaks of the Mohave as godless savages, thereby winning the approval of both Stratton and the crowd.

Scene III: Through a dramatized exchange of letters. Olive lets The Great Western know she is being courted. Her suitor is a wealthy Texas rancher, John Brant Fairchild. He wants to marry her but there is one condition: Olive must never again speak of her time with the Indians. Olive decides to accept Fairchild’s proposal, in order to have security and companionship. This means angering Stratton, who utters cruel words as he accuses her of disloyalty.

Act III. Scene I: Parlor in Fairchild’s ranch house. Nine years later. Chorus, now representing ranch hands, describe Olive as a good if strangely sorrowful wife. Then Olive ruefully sings about how she has adjusted to “civilized life.” Her husband is kind. They are wealthy. Her tattoo is well-covered; in fact she insists on wearing a black veil at all times. Then she picks up a newspaper. She reads that Irataba, the Mohave chief who cherished her and acted as her father, is coming to Washington DC to meet with President Lincoln. Fairchild enters and Olive tells him, her whole demeanor alight, that she is going to Washington to see Irataba. He forbids it, standing in front of the door to block her exit. She stabs him in the arm with a hat pin (a flesh wound yet painful), rips off her veil, and sets off to DC.

Scene II. Washington DC: the anteroom of Irataba’s suite. Olive waits there anxiously, expressing how she hopes her “father”, Irataba, will see her. Olive wants him to know that he saved her and that the most authentic part of her is always with him and the tribe. But she is worried Irataba will reject her, because of what she said about Indians during her lecture tour. Then a government aide, played by a member of the chorus, says Irataba will be delighted to see her. Olive sings a triumphant aria about how she will now be made whole again by reuniting with Irataba, the fractured halves of her soul–Mohave and Western–at last brought together. A big door swings open revealing a space filled with light; she enters while the Chorus bursts into a triumphant hymn.

Maryanne Bertollo, who has a BA from Bennington College, currently lives in NYC. She has studied and worked in both the UK and India. Nineteenth-century literature has always been fascinating to her, providing inspiration for several of her works. Before taking up libretto, Maryanne published several novels under the pen name Annabelle Troy; these titles include Jane Eyre Gets Real, Hansel and Gretel in the House of Candy and The Grace of the Hunchback. She plans to teach a course entitled Vibrato Vixens at the NYU School of Professional Studies in autumn, 2025. Contact Maryanne Bertollo at  maryanne8@gmail.com,

Contact Edmund Cionek at edmandu@mindspring.com for inquiries about Returning: the Ordeal of Olive Oatman.