Production to give a voice to Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’

BAR HARBOR – The College of the Atlantic announced Friday that an opera commemorating ecologist Rachel Carson’s life has received its first financial backing.

The New England Foundation for the Arts contributed a $1,000 grant, while the Margaret E. Burnham Charitable Trust has promised $3,000 according to COA spokesman Carl Little.

The opera is part of a multiyear effort to honor Carson, who spent summers on the coast of Maine throughout her life.

The piece will primarily feature her famed 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” which is often credited with sparking the modern environmental movement in America. “Silent Spring,” so-named for the absence of bird songs, was the first book to document and describe the adverse effects of man-made pesticides such as DDT on the natural environment.

“It’s almost like a Bible for this type of literature,” Little said of the book. “Carson wrote as a scientist, but also as a poet.”

The college has already commemorated Carson with theatrical performances and a six-hour public reading of the 297-page “Silent Spring.” But the opera, to be performed in 2002 or 2003, will be the celebration’s climax.

The college has commissioned master composer Henry Mollicone to create the opera’s score. The recent grant funding will help underwrite a residency for Mollicone to spend August 2001 at COA, writing his music, according to Little.

“Mollicone’s residency will benefit the island community through education and involvement on and off the campus,” Steve Katona, president of COA, said in a statement released Friday.

Mollicone, a graduate of the New England Conservatory, is currently employed as music director and conductor at Santa Clara University in California. Mollicone is known for his one-act operas, such as “The Face on the Barroom Floor,” which is one of America’s most frequently performed contemporary operas.

The Washington Post has dubbed Mollicone, “One of the most distinctive American opera composers.”

But Mollicone has also written critically acclaimed pieces for orchestra, ballet, film, television and theater. The composer could not be reached for comment Sunday.

After Mollicone accepted the COA commission, he called local poet Bill Booth and proposed a collaboration. Mollicone hoped to use several poems from Booth’s books, “Sparkles and Other Poems”(1993) and “The Mountains are Waiting” (1995) to bring Carson’s poetic brand of ecology to life on stage.

“It’s my personal experiences with nature in different ways,” Booth said. “The theme is how we fit into the natural scheme of things.”

Like Carson’s writing, much of Booth’s writing celebrates the human need to connect with the natural world; “Deep silence is a shared experience in a world where one is accepted, respected and known,” Booth writes in the introduction to “Sparkles and Other Poems.”

“For me, the world of deep silence is normally a world of trees, birds, rocks, water and many other natural beings. An extraordinary kinship may develop among those who share such silence,” he writes.

Booth also shares Carson’s biological sensibility. A native of Maine, he studied agriculture at the state university before combining his interests in science and theology to work with citizens in South Africa. Booth semi-retired to Bar Harbor in 1994, and has spent his time teaching at COA and recording the minuscule details of the natural world surrounding him, with both camera and pen.

The poet has not learned which of his poems Mollicone is interested in setting to music for the song cycle that will begin the opera, and he’s a little nervous. The two artists have spoken, and seem to share an understanding of Carson’s gift. But this will be the first time his poetry has been transformed into another medium.

“I’m thrilled with the idea,” said Booth said Saturday. “If it can come through as expressive of what I had in mind, I’ll be delighted.”