Orchestration

soprano and piano
text by: Tao Lin

Duration

5 minutes

Commissioned by/Premiere

OPERA America to celebrate the opening of their new opera center
Premiered by Mellissa Hughes at the National Opera Center on March 20, 2013

Score

Published in The Opera America Songbook by Schott NY. Purchase from Hal Leonard or Amazon.

Listen

Note

That Night with the Green Sky was composed in the summer of 2012. It evokes the perennial sense of mystery but also home that New York City provides me.

Text

It was snowing and you were kind of beautiful
We were in the city and every time I looked up
Someone was leaning out a window, staring at me

I could tell you liked me a lot or maybe even loved me
But you kept walking at this strange speed
You kept going in angles and it was confusing me

I think maybe you were thinking that you’d make me disappear
By walking at strange speeds and in a strange, curvy way
But how would that cause me to vanish from the planet Earth?

And that hurts
Why did you want me gone?
That hurts
Why?
Why?
I don’t know
Some things can’t be explained, I guess
The sky, for example, was green that night
– Tao Lin (b. 1983) from Three Poems