In 1969, the dead body of a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, was discovered
inside an overturned car in a channel on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts.
The car belonged to Senator Edward M. Ted
Kennedy, who did not report the
late-night incident to police authorities until the following morning. After the
discovery, Kopechne's body was recovered from the submerged car and Kennedy gave a
statement to police saying that during the previous night, she was his passenger
when he took a wrong turn and accidentally drove his car off a bridge and into
the water. After pleading guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident
after causing injury, Kennedy received a suspended sentence of two months. The
national scandal that followed may have influenced Kennedy's decision not to
campaign for President of the United States in 1972 and 1976.
Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates is a slightly-veiled fictional account of these events. This extended composition is dramatically effective as both a concert work and as a staged monodrama. Whether in a concert setting or in the theater, the soprano and the pianist assume multiple roles and states of mind (following the variety of levels created by Oates).The work is presented almost completely from the point of view of the drowning woman: in reality, in flashback, in dreams and in hallucinations.
© 2016 by Monica Harwood