For the composer’s choice assignment, Benton Roark generously asked me to write another scene from my chamber opera idea, originally titled Madonna of the Wilderness. I decided to write the final scene, where Madonna is reunited with her lost husband, who doesn’t recognize her because she now has her hands back.

Benton wanted a fuller sound than the two voices assigned to us, so he conscripted more from the group to create a lush three-part chorus in dialogue with the two lovers. Because Madonna finds her Gardener in the river, Benton used the inspiration of water sounds throughout.

The lovers have been through betrayal by the Gardener’s mother, a seven-year separation, both wandering the woods, and Madonna has cared for their young child through it all, regaining her hands in the process. This reunion is bittersweet, for that loss that must be washed away, but hopeful because they are now together, where Madonna began, at her own cottage where once she lived with her own father and mother, and where once she lost her hands.

This is the scene that inspired us to partner in the larger project, The Handless Maiden, and most of this original music from “Wash the Loss Away” remains in the final chamber opera version, which was performed during IndieOperaWeek in Vancouver in 2019.

- Katherine Koller