Amelia’s Flight
Original Opera

Characters
Amelia Earhart - a pilot on the cutting edge of aviation, who disappeared near Howland Island, 2200 miles from Lae, New Guinea in her record breaking race along the equator in 1937.

Alexandra David-Neel - a French explorer, anarchist, spiritualist, Buddhist and writer. She is most known for her visit to the forbidden (to foreigners) city of Lhasa, capital of Tibet in 1924.

Radio Announcer

Electra - Amelia’s plane

Original Opera
21 Moments

21 short compositions, kaleidoscopic first impressions. New experiences, without preconceptions. Landing quickly from the perspective of vast space. The inner journey as one stays focused on accomplishing a record race across the equator. Color, coastlines, gaiety, intense relations, feminism, the climate and mechanical obstacles and dangers.

1
Prelude in Blue - the blue sky and sea, space and clarity

2
Take-Off - listening to the radio broadcast, a normal take-off now breathlessly exciting

I. South America - jungle, do you prefer drowning to incineration catching the rhythm of travel, occupied mechanics, exoticism, looking and seeing

3
San Juan, Puerto Rico -- creating in space, colors of the depth of water, dreams unfurled, cities suspended in the sky

4
Cumana -- barely started the journey or looked at the world and pushing through to the next landing, never in the present

5
Suriname - cut straight across dense virgin jungle, the impact of slavery, devouring exotic surroundings, her perceptions awakening

6
Forteleza - being prepared to turn back, wherever ‘back’ is, women’s carriage, nostril rings, projections, reactions to a woman traveling alone

7
Natal - a muddy tropic deluge, the nonmaterial more shadowy than a deep ravine, those who kindly rush out to push Electra are soaked for their pains, spilling so much gas charged more than the tank can hold

II. Africa - endless buffeting about in unbelievable temperatures of all the maps that fell in my hands, Africa was my favorite

8
The Crossing - pitch dark cockpit, subdued lights navigate space, intimate skywritings

9
St Louis - a riot of human color, the wealth of detail, feet here are the most interesting thing.

10
Dakar - colonization in their pink city on a jutting point of land, the efficient mechanic discovers a broken shaft, working from a blueprint in English, he has a difficult job to manage, backdrops of equal proportions

11
Gao - this is a land of opposites.one writes from right to left, takes off one’s shoes and eaves on one’s hat, travels by night and sleeps by day, thousand mile hops seem routine, a paltry five hundred miles - practically neighbors

12
N'Djamena - women are bred to timidity, the lack of opportunity for girls in aviation, especially those whose taste aren’t routine, they don’t get a fair break, reserved for masculinity are joys of discovery

13
El Fasher - the map around El Fasher holds more and larger blanks than any territory that we traversed, miles of dotted red lines map legend’s native tracks, five to be exact, are the roads fit for traffic.

14
Khartoum - in the midst of stretching sand, fine lines appear on the surface, wrinkles in the ancient land, heated air blasts up the slope, buffeting the ship unkindly we spiral down slopes abruptly

15 Massawa - evening shadows reveal great gleaming salt piles, the crystal crop, the blistering sun - Massawa’s potent manufacturer, on the far side of Africa

III. Asia & Beyond - monsoon impacts Electra the tension builds, movement quickens, inside the illusion

16
Assab (Crossing Middle East to Asia) - flight pattern cuts a deep indentation, the stipulation being we fly Arabia’s edge, a strange woman, an interloper, tribesmen, such possibilities

17
Karachi - camels, love and fantasies, walking along, part of a caravan, an individual breathing woman, but what of the promise, the record still to be broken along the equator

18
Calcutta - from fields, to jute mills, to the metropolis, where bulls and Shirley Temple reign, ten thousand Europeans rule its destiny, a university, yet half can not read, men outnumber women two to one, penetrating the wall

19
South Seas - pounding through the islands, an unbroken wall of water savagely beats paint from Electra’s wings, small figures trail in the water - their every move reflected in a shining flood, “The Venice of the Orient” countless tiny islands, emeralds in settings of turquoise, overnight hungry jungle gashed by rubber plantations swallow man’s puny scratchings, we merge into brilliance covered in gold leaf, bundling Electra in propeller covers.

20
Darwin - a fine place for sharks and shark talk, Six added pounds offset one precious gallon of fuel, the Pacific ahead, time to ship home the parachute

21
Lae, New Guinea - clouds seen as matter, concrete transformations of the inner world, looking clearly at the amazing universe, the inner journey complete, dead reckoning, exactly where she was meant to be

1 Prelude in Blue

Amelia
To fly and fly and fly

Alexandra
Completely engage

Amelia
Completely engage

Alexandra
Completely engage in the
World from that clear space

Amelia
Above unknown seas

Alexandra
Look at the blue.

Amelia
Watching the sun brush
Back the silver grey of dawn
The sea becomes hazy

Alexandra
Concentrate on an object.

Amelia
The full-throated smooth sound of engines

Alexandra
Focus on the blue
The sky uncluttered by clouds

Amelia
I doubt observing the sky
Will lead to any spectacular results
Thirty seconds later,
With comforting ease

Alexandra
Thirty seconds later,
With comforting ease,
In the air and on her way

Music: space and clarity
Sound: Engine
Character: Amelia, Alexandra

2 Take-Off

WQAM Broadcast from Miami, FL
Amelia
Held in cruel suspense
Will I get off safely?
The broadcast
A masterpiece to me
Quite too entertaining to miss
My very normal take-off
Now breathlessly exciting

Radio Broadcast
Just in, Amelia Earhart is bound for California

Amelia
Secretly.

Radio Broadcast
By about the longest route conceived

Amelia
A final fling at spectacular flight
Along the equator

Radio Broadcast
In the last minute
There seems to be a delay
A broken thermocouple

Amelia
Quite too entertaining to miss.

Radio Broadcast
Earhart singles to have
The wheel chocks removed
Taxies to the runway

Amelia

Taking the plane into sunrise
The silver plane in the sunrise

Radio Broadcast
The wing drops
Crowds cheer
Earhart reduces power
On the opposite engine
Pulling from right to left
Will she take control?
The wing drops
Crowds cheer

Amelia
What a masterpiece!
Will I gain control?
Held in cruel suspense

Radio Broadcast
The wing drops
Crowds cheer

Alexandra
You are going to
Enter this masterpiece

Music: Urgency
Sound: Amelia talking
Character: Amelia, Radio Broadcaster

3 San Juan, Puerto Rico

Miami to San Juan (908 miles)
Amelia appears in pilot garb in the cockpit of Electra. Alexandra appears as a mad woman dancing on massive ice-mountains on the vast Tibetan plain.

Amelia
The blue depths of the Gulf Stream
meet aquamarine waters
A curving line in beautiful light
Sharply contrasting the leaden dullness of
The far reaching North Atlantic

I walk with my dreams unfurled
An loose myself in my own labyrinth
The dream unfurled carries me
A rhythm demanding solitude

Alexandra
It is not insanity,
It is creating in space

Amelia

Suddenly through the haze,
Colorful San Juan
A city suspended in the sky

Stage: Creating in space
Character: Amelia, Alexandra

4 Cumana

San Juan to Cumana, Venezuela (492 miles)
Sea grows and expands, unlocks the continents, following waterways

Amelia
Pushing through hurrying
To get to some other place
Pushing through hurrying
To get to some other place

Roll out of bed at a quarter of four,
Hoping to take-off at dawn

Pushing through
Pushing through
Get to some other place

Construction work shortens
The take-off distance,
Making the fuel load a bit difficult

Pushing through
Pushing through
Get to some other place

Electra does not lift her wheels ‘til seven,
The sun well above the horizon

I have never seen a jungle
Geography requiring the best equipment

Do you prefer drowning to incineration?

Electra can glide gently down
Without the use of her engine
But she must have a smooth
open space for alighting.

(Sax returns to Pushing Through)

Character: Amelia, Alexandra

5 Suriname

June 3, Cumana to Paramaribo, Suriname (610 miles)
Amelia
Rain clouds hang high above Caripito
Dodging squalls and flying low
We cut straight across dense virgin jungle
So thick solid treetops for miles
Broken by a silver streak,
The name of the river, Surinam,
Once applied to this whole country.
A vicious, wicked spot of slavery
That flourished along
The wild coast of South America

Alexandra
Your thirst is immense
But my naivete
Makes you easy prey

Amelia
I devoured exotic my surroundings
The beauty of both the men and the women
Through its sights and sounds
Through my eyes and ears
Through every one of the five sense organs

Alexandra
A quickening of the perception
Is a step on the path to power

Amelia
The adjacent jungle creeps down
To the very edge of town
Inhabited by Bush Africans
Descendants of escaped slaves
Glimpsed in the market place
Bartering soft-shell turtle eggs,
String beans eighteen inches long,
Horned cucumbers, breadfruit and sapodillas

Alexandra
Thrilled at being her own woman
She sped along at the head of the party

Character: Amelia, Alexandra

6 Forteleza

Paramaribo to Fortaleza, Brazil (1,142 miles)
960 miles of jungle, added to hops of 370 miles by compass course over open sea

Amelia
Leaving too early to receive reports,
What lay in store, is largely conjecture
In a strange country I must be prepared to turn back,
Assuming the way back can be found and
A landing can be made wherever “back” is.

Sax Interlude

At the time Electra’s shadow
passes over the mythical line
I am so occupied I miss the occasion

A female traveling as I do is a matter of
Puzzlement to her sheltered sisters hereabout,
As is the dexterity of women balancing
Loads on their heads as they pace along with me,

The custom appears to aid their carriage,
For they are straight and sturdy as can be

The only inconvenience seems to be their inability to
Turn their heads around if anything worthwhile passes by.

Yet another complication, nostril buttons to
Discourage kissing during husbands’ absence.

Complications may ensue
Lady without an escort
Lady without an escort
Complications may ensue

During the night a deluge of rain falls
I feel I might find the field a quagmire

Character: Amelia

7 Natal

Amelia
In the last few minutes of flying,
I race a black rain squall to the field.
As I turn on the runway
taxi to the hangar,
the rain catches me,
A muddy tropic deluge
blots out vision fifty feet away.

Alexandra
The nonmaterial more
shadowy than the deep ravine

Amelia
Though I sit waterproof in the cockpit,
those who kindly rush out to push Electra
are soaked for their pains

A vivid touch of color
Green trees face a gray-green sea.

Natal boys spill so much gas
Charged more than the tank can hold.

Beyond, the surf beats a stranded wreck.

Sound: Sound of sea
Character: Amelia, Alexandra

II. Africa

8 The Crossing

Third Dawn in Flight over the Atlantic

Natal, Brazil to St. Louis, Senegal, (1,727 miles)
The transatlantic leg, flight time 13 hours, 12 min. Skywrit

Amelia
Once off the ground,
Inside my cockpit,
Pitch dark
Subdued lights
Navigate space

Rain sends clouds.
Giants of Atlantic
throw liner about carelessly.
Only too much oil.

Skywrit recordings,
Remote and scientific could
Unexplained, may imply
something intimate

Our night soon enough day

Music: Atmospheric
Stage: Dark but for the lights inside the cockpit, red flashing, green. skywrit recordings - hand
written log
Character: Amelia

9 St Louis, Africa

St. Louis to Dakar (100 miles)
Amelia
June 7, my Electra puts her
Wheels down in Africa
To drop down out of western skies
A kaleidoscopic first impression
A riot of human color
Bright clothing contrasting with
Neutral backgrounds,
Brown plains, bare hills,
Parched vegetation, drab dwellings
Streets a tropic comic opera

Alexandra
Pretty illustrations
The wealth of detail
The artist has gone to great lengths
To make the figures realistic

Amelia
I am confident in success.
Feet here are the most interesting thing.
Women carry babies haphazardly on their backs
Headdresses of all types, miraculous conformations
In the market, mountains of peanuts.

Character: Amelia, Alexandra

10 Dakar

Dakar to Gao (1,016 miles)
Amelia
The Dakar airport is excellent,
Picturesquely situated
A point of command
The French have a
genius for colonization
Certainly they seem
miraculously at home
In their pink city
On a jutting point of land

The efficient mechanic
Discovers a broken shaft
Working from a blueprint in English,
Which, he does not understand,
In an aeroplane, he does not know
He has a difficult job to manage

I turn the nose of Electra from
the Atlantic to the Red Sea

Of all the maps that
fell in my clutches
Africa was my favorite.
I weighed the advantages
The comparative ferociousness
of the rivers Tauregs and Swahili
Niger and the Nile

Alexandra
All personages in
Backdrops of
equal proportion
Intense existence

Amelia
Warning - tornadoes to the south,
Sandstorms on the north
Extremely hot weather is creating
Unfavorable conditions in the interior
Exactly what course we fly will be
Determined as we progress.

Stage:Are they looking at a painting? Is there a world of matter or simply atoms?
Is this the masterpiece Alexandra referred to earlier?
Character: Amelia, Alexandra

11 Gao

Gao to N'Djamena (910 miles)
Amelia
Women are bred to timidity
Women are bred to timidity

There are more pleasant diversions
Than hand pumping at a temperature
Well over one hundred degrees

There are more pleasant diversions
Than hand pumping at one hundred degrees

The aviation industry
Busy with mechanics and economics
What of the human aspect of the machine?

The lack of opportunity
for girls in aviation
Especially those whose
taste aren’t routine
They don’t get a fair break.

Through generations, age-old customs
Women are bred to timidity.

Reserved for masculinity are joys of discovery
What makes a motor go,
batting bumps out of bent fenders
Among my suppressed desires
A machine shop where girls may sprawl
A machine shop for girls? (Laughter)

On their back, peering up into the innards of engines,
Getting oil in their hair and merge somewhere in
Between the scale of grease-monkeys and inventors.

Music: Pounding mechanics

Stage:
Very hot air makes difficult flying,
Thin, lacking lifting power.
On equatorial fields, the sun reflecting from the sands,
Landing speeds must be faster than normal.
After a day of heat the air is particularly rough.

Character: Amelia

13 El Fasher

June 13, El Fasher to Khartoum, Sudan, 437 miles
Amelia
The map around El Fasher
Holds more and larger blanks
Than any territory that we traversed
Miles of dotted red lines
Map legend’s native tracks
Five to be exact, are the roads fit for traffic.

Rivers start out bravely
End in thirsty sands
In the bed of the Wadi Howa
Two ringbarked Heglig trees

How long since the last last rain
Yet no concern of the next
Heat waves dance up from the surface
One ten in the shade

The map around El Fasher
Holds more and larger blanks
Than any territory that we traversed
Miles of dotted red lines
Map native tracks to the
Metropolis at one ten degrees
in the shade.

Music: fast rhythmic chant

Stage:
Visual Map
The text in the upper left
Hand of the map records that:
In the bed of the Wadi Howa
Two heglig trees about four
Meters apart were ringbarked.
They mark the intersection of
The twenty-fourth meridian,
Rolling desert no trees;
Many remains of animals;
High-level plateau with
Scanty grass, some bush, stony;
Swamp in rain, salt-pan;
Standing water until November;
Wells. Water never entirely fails.

Character: Amelia

14 Khartoum

Khartoum to Massawa, Ethiopia, 400 miles
Amelia
To eat the lotus of the Nile
And drink the poppies of Cathay
‘Asleep in lap of legends old’
This cradle-land of history

Come so far, one could
Weep to pass so briefly
We refuel, pay our respects

Alexandra
But then what would happen if
She lost interest in a characters

Amelia
In the midst of stretching sand
Fine lines appear on the surface,
Wrinkles in the ancient land

The low desert roughens then
Rises into sloping foothills,
Mountains of vegetation,

Heated air blasts up the slope,
Buffeting the ship unkindly
We spiral down slopes abruptly.

Alexandra
The greater the disturbance, the greater the joy

Amelia
From the heights I see the Red Sea.
It is not red, but is blue.
Both the Blue and White Nile - green.

Beyond Arabia’s mirage, shimmering land

Across or around lays our course

Both the Blue and White Nile - green.

Music: Turbulent lines
Stage: First time green vegetation after much desert.

Character: Amelia, Alexandra

15 Massawa

Tuesday, June 14, Massawa to Assab (241 miles)
Amelia
As we fly down in
Evening shadows
Beside the town
Great gleaming salt piles
The crystal crop

The blistering sun
Massawa’s
potent manufacturer
Leaving behind
thick salt coatings
on the far side of Africa

Music: short, held notes against awkward bass line. A slowing down of the movement,
suspension in space before flying over the Middle East. A pause.

Stage: The crystal crop. Intense heat.

Character: Amelia

III. The East

16 Assab

Scene 1: June 15, Assab – Karachi (1,627 miles)
Amelia
We depart Assab
Before New York
knew we had arrived.

Cutting a deep indentation
The stipulation being
We fly Arabia’s edge

A strange woman,
an interloper
The officials did not relish
Such a possibility.

The Arab tribesmen
may not be hospitable
Or may be too hospitable

The control jams
The right engine gulps

I could not forget planes

Music: Take Off

Character: Amelia, Alexandra

17 Karachi

Scene 2: Karachi to Calcutta (1,178 miles)
Amelia
Alluring opportunities to linger crop up
An invitation from the Maharaja of Jodhphur
To land at his private airport

A camel unhinges himself in a most extraordinary fashion
As his hind legs unfold you are threatened with a nosedive
That may unhorse you, uncamel you,
The camel’s center section hoists into the air,
Reminiscent of the first symptoms of a flat spin

Loops, rolls, spins
Mingled fear and pleasure
Surge over me
My body trembles with
Delight despair
Delight and despair
A flesh loving immediacy
Delight and despair
A strength of love I do not doubt
A startling take-off

Feeling myself walking along
Part of a caravan of
Individual breathing woman

Alexandra
“Ships of the desert” careen along the roads

Amelia
What am I doing here?
Wasting my time
imagining this and that
Forgetting my promise

Drama: At this point an urgency takes over, Amelia’s record breaking contract.

Stage: The woman moves deeper into the landscape

Character: Amelia, Alexandra

18 Calcutta

Calcutta – Sittwe (291 miles)
Amelia
The great barren stretch of India
Perfectly mapped by the railroad
The Taj Mahal, of which a thousand
Words have been placed from end to end

Patterned squares, tiles of cultivation
Irrigation, a framing channel
Brimming water, reflect silver threads
The glinting sun, then factories and
Jute mills come to view, merge in the
Mighty congestion , the metropolis

Alexandra
She leaves the cubby hole of her plane
Penetrates the painting. Joins the procession.

Amelia
Bulls wonder at will on sidewalks
Where Shirley Temple reigns
A sprawling city of contrasts
Small shops, tall office buildings
Ten thousand Europeans rule its destiny.
A university, yet half can not read.
Men, I am told, outnumber
Women two to one, Why the reversal?
The usual, the opposite

Alexandra
Unexplained, unnoticed. She wants to flee.

Amelia
Some irrepressible force
pushes me into the wall.

Alexandra
The elaborate manifestations
Incomprehensible to her untrained mind
No more than your own projections
The woman there but not as clear

Amelia
Passing the many mouths of the Ganges
India’s dense downpours
Sudden mountains to slap against
The monsoon’s full fury no flyer welcomes

Whitewashed waves of the ocean contain
No more than your own projections
The woman moves deeper into the landscape

Music: At “She leaves the cubby hole” deep sound symbolic of something ancient, giving up
herself. She joins the procession

Drama: Is it more important her record breaking activity or her inner journey as she presses into
the wall, the painting.

Stage: Procession, like parades of Oaxaca, of skeletons and frivolity.

Character: Amelia, Alexandra

19 The South Seas

Sittwe, Akyab to Rangoon (268 miles)
Amelia
Below green, lush and steaming
The wettest profession in the world
We fly low over endless paddies
Small figures trailing in the water
Every move reflected in a shining flood
They look up as we pass.
Some wave hats; others turn back to work,
Now and then water buffalo,
Resenting the roar of Electra,
Suddenly careen across
The shining soggy field.

An unbroken wall of water
Savagely beats paint from Electra’s wings

Rangoon to Bangkok, Thailand, 315 miles

“The Venice of the Orient”
Watery thoroughfares
Clustered on the Me Nam River

Bandoeng, Indonesia, 541 miles, delayed by monsoon

Above countless tiny islands
Glowing emeralds in settings of turquoise
Rise from the sea, hazy contours
Enchanting loveliness takes form.
The locals laugh, chat, carry baskets
Not on heads but on poles over their shoulders.

Bangkok to Singapore, 780 miles

Overnight hungry jungle
Gashed by rubber plantations swallow
Man’s puny scratchings, tin miners.
Tigers, pythons, savage Malay fishermen
Yesterday, strategical vast Singapore
Was a mangrove swamp

June 19, Akyab (now Sittwe) to Rangoon, Myamar, 268 miles

Flying blind in this
Soupy atmosphere
Sneaking below clouds
We merge into brilliance
Covered in gold leaf.

A love of gay garments
Accentuate slimness.
Streetcar compartments
For women only
No male associates

Yet more freedom
Yet more education
Than we have seen so far.
Many are in business.
The right to vote for years.

June 27, Bandoeng to Koepang, Indonesia, 668 miles (Java)

Forced to land so as not to get caught after dark
The long grass undulates in strong winds.
Open surface for landing but no shed for Electra
I bundle her up using the propeller covers.
Carefully done so that I can sleep peacefully.
My work amuses the natives from a nearby village.
So when we turn the craft’s nose to the wind,
All the men join in willingly and noisily.
Making themselves visible to the gods.

Music: Pounding monsoon rain on the metal of Electra, quick movement, each country reflecting
a different atmosphere. Ending reflects theme at beginning of scene

Sound: Rain and plane engines

Stage: Forms from mist arise in parts

Character: Amelia, Alexandra (last line joins Amelia)

20 Darwin

Australia; Koepang to Darwin, Australia, 445 miles
Amelia
Against strong head winds
We cross the Timor Sea
At seven thousand feet
Not a shark is to be seen.

Alexandra
She missed Jean Batten.

Amelia
A great country
this is for “shark talk”
Catching them - business
Warning visitors - an avocation.
I ship home my parachute

Music: 15 Massawa, another pause

Character: Amelia

21 Lae, New Guinea

June 28-29, Darwin to Lae, New Guinea, 1,012 miles
Amelia
Spotted freakish islands,
Stony fingers pointing
Above a fairy-story sky country
Peopled with creatures who
eye us with ancient wisdom
As we thread our way through
its shining white valleys
Dank gray mist when
we barge into them

Alexandra
The masks fell away
The task at hand, unlocking the
Secrets of the three-pound universe
Inside our heads
Down to the super neuron level

Amelia
Hazardous minarets

Native men with peroxide-bleached hair,
Women very much out of evidence.
Oblong thatched-roof edifices perch
Precariously on stilts of piling driven into the mud
Much of the land composed only of silt,
Held together by tangled undergrowth.
All combine to make us wish we could stay.
As Electra is poised for our longest hop
The mirror held up to myself, when you
Have done this what have you achieved?

Alexandra
Not some kind of mystical level
But a concrete evolutionary thing

Amelia
Healthier than playing
hide and seek with unknown terrains

Alexandra
The task at hand sensational.

Amelia
Finally, when dead reckoning indicates we
Have traveled far enough, we let down gingerly.
The thinning clouds gradually withdraw and
We find ourselves where we should be.

Drama: Clouds seen as matter, concrete transformations of the inner world, looking clearly at the
amazing universe, no regrets, the inner journey complete.

Character: Amelia, Alexandra

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