Triptych: Three Disasters
Composer: Andrea Reinkemeyer, DMA (b. 1976)
reinkemeyer.composer@gmail.com
http://www.andreareinkemeyer.com
Librettist: Patrick Wohlmut (b. 1976)
wohlmutpa@gmail.com
Triptych: Three Disasters, a Chamber Opera Scene for Two Sopranos, Baritone, Piano, and Two-Channel Fixed Media, was commissioned by Rhymes With Opera for inclusion in the 2020 New Music Gathering. Initially intended to take place in Portland, Oregon, the New Music Gathering was moved online due to health concerns arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and to comply with Governor Kate Brown’s restrictions on large gatherings during that time.
When contemplating the theme of the 2020 Gathering, “Local Action,” Andrea and Patrick became intrigued with the history of natural disasters in the Pacific Northwest, and the ways in which those disasters reflected both positive and negative forms of local action. After some discussion, they decided to focus on three events:
The four fires known collectively as the Tillamook Burn ignited, and then reignited, at six-year intervals, from 1933 to 1951. The first Burn consumed, on its own, approximately 240,000 acres of forest. It started when a logging crew near Gales Creek, Oregon, attempted to harvest one more log after receiving a late message to cease the day’s efforts, due to high temperatures and tinder dry conditions. The log in question rubbed against another fallen tree, and the friction caused a spark that set fire to the forest. Following the last Burn, in 1951, the total number of acres of forest destroyed was close to 350,000.
The city of Vanport, constructed in 1942, was initially conceived as a temporary city to house Kaiser Shipyards workers during World War II. It was the most racially integrated community in Oregon at the time. Continuing past the World War as the city became home to returning veterans, as well as the site of Vanport College (the future Portland State University), the city was destroyed in 1948 when the Columbia River overflowed a 200 foot railroad berm, flooding Vanport and destroying it. It is thought that the dangers of potential flood were underplayed by government officials, probably due to racism.
The Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake is a disaster that has not yet happened. This subduction zone is a fault in the Earth’s crust that lies about 700 miles off of the Pacific Northwest coast. In recent years, seismologists discovered that this faultline has a history of shifting at particular points in history; that the earthquakes it produces tend to be devastating; and that we are coming due for another shift. Scientists anticipate that the next quake will be at least as powerful as anything the San Andreas fault has caused, and will probably be more so, having the potential to destroy much of the land and many of the communities west of the I-5 corridor and creating a tsunami that would only add to the tragedy. It is generally agreed that the communities on the Pacific Coast, and in the Pacific Northwest, are currently unprepared for this eventual disaster, in spite of the knowledge that it is almost certainly coming.
Though some of these events featured positive action in their aftermaths - the Tillamook Burn forever changed the way the State of Oregon manages its forested lands and timber industry, and Vanport was the start of greater racial integration and tolerance statewide - each of these disasters, historical or future, is characterized by missed opportunities to do the right thing. Whether through greed, prejudice, or simple lack of foresight, they stand as reminders of what can happen when businesses and governments don’t take appropriate action, or when they take the wrong action. In that way, these Three Disasters speak to each other across time, sounding a warning of lives forever lost and altered.
The music of composer Andrea Reinkemeyer (b. 1976) “explores a reverent sound world that hovers just above the brink of silence” (Second Inversion); it is “clever, funky, jazzy and virtuosic” (Schenectady Daily Gazette) and “hauntingly melodic and fun, dancing and almost running its way forward” (Fanfare). Her current musical explorations focus on intersectional feminist narratives, natural phenomena, grief, and home. She has enjoyed recent commissions from: League of American Orchestras and Louisiana Philharmonic with generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation; Rhymes with Opera; Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra; H. Robert Reynolds and Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings; and Rodney Dorsey for the University of Oregon Wind Ensemble and University Singers. Her music is distributed by the ADJ•ective Composers’ Collective and featured on recordings by In Mulieribus, Idit Shner, A/B Duo, and Post-Haste Reed Duo. Dr. Reinkemeyer is an Associate Professor of Music Composition & Theory at Linfield College. She holds degrees in music composition from the University of Michigan (DMA/MM) and University of Oregon (BM). Born and raised in Oregon, she has also lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Bangkok, Thailand.
Photo by Jeff Kennell/Linfield College. Copyright © 2018
Playwright Patrick Wohlmut is a past winner of a 2007 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation New Science Initiative play commission. The result of that commission, Continuum, was developed with the guidance and support of Mead Hunter; Megan Kate Ward; Portland Center Stage, who awarded Wohlmut the commission and included the work in 2011’s JAW Made In Oregon New Play Festival; and the artists at Playwrights West, who produced Continuum’s world premiere production at the CoHo Theater in Portland, Oregon, in 2012. Marty Hughley in the Oregonian described the play as “densely plotted… part scientific inquiry, part twisted, muted love story,” and said that Wohlmut “artfully introduces question after question about these characters and their pasts, suspending bits of evidence and explanation in mid-air until they at last coalesce into an elegant resolution of the emotional, theoretical and thematic threads.”
Patrick’s short plays have been produced as part of two anthology productions at Portland’s Shaking The Tree Theater - Bluebeard appeared in 2012’s The Tripping Point, and he wrote the title piece in 2014’s Masque of the Red Death. His short works have also seen readings and productions at Portland State University, Pacific University, and Bump In The Road Theater.
Also in 2014, his play, The Waves - a modern retelling of Plato’s Apology, set in a high school - premiered at Portland’s Wilson High School as part of the Teen West Project, a collaboration between Playwrights West and Wilson that pairs professional playwrights with high school students to create original works that feature teen actors and speak to teen concerns. He returned to Wilson for Teen West’s 2019 production, A Short In The Wire, an anthology show that featured his site-specific play, The Receipts.
In 2016, Patrick was commissioned by Portland Shakespeare Project to create, for their Proscenium Live! Festival, an original adaptation of a classical work. That play, Patchwork Dreams - described as “a cybernetic reboot of the themes of creation, self-determination and moral agency from Frankenstein” in Oregon Arts Watch - received workshop readings of Act One in 2017, and the full length play in 2018, to strong, positive audience response.
Patrick Wohlmut is a proud founding, emeritus member of Playwrights West, a company and collective that seeks to introduce Portland audiences to compelling, innovative theatrical experiences while engaging in a dialogue with the Portland theatre community about the rewards of presenting vital new plays by gifted local authors.
Photo by Steve Patterson, copyright © 2011