The prodigal son: compiling the libretto

Two Sundays ago, I think it was, the Gospel reading and sermon at the morning eucharist concerned the parable of the Prodigal Son. I felt a sudden attachment to him, the themes of forgiveness and a father/son reconciliation striking a particular chord with me. For what was probably the first time since my father's death last October, I found myself not evoking his memory in the prayers of intercession (the words "hear us as we remember those dear to us who have died in the faith of Christ" were always sure to set me off), as I'd been struck by the idea of setting the parable to music in the form of a cantata.

It's been a while since I wrote anything even remotely large-scale, and with something of this sort, it's essential I get the text right before getting going with the music. First off, I sought out my Bible (my father's copy, as it happens) and read the parable thoroughly, realising almost immediately that some cuts would be necessary. Given that this cantata is to encapsulate my reconciliation with my father (albeit posthumously), the elder son's angry tirade about his father's seeming favouritism would feel out of place. To my mind, the key moments are his brother's resolve to seek their father's forgiveness and the latter's joy at the safe return of his younger son.

Thus shorn, the plot looked like this: younger son demands his inheritance, scarpers and promptly spends it. Famine strikes and he finally comes to his senses - cue big aria. He sets off home, only his father sees him long before he's even got there, rushes out to meet him and immediately orders a big "welcome home" party. Later, big brother gets back from a hard day's work, sees what's going on and isn't best pleased - cue the father's turn to sing an aria about why he's so happy.

So far so good, but I wasn't entirely convinced by having great acres of plot narrated by a choir, so replaced them with another soloist (an alto, maybe a countertenor) and promptly regretted their absence (I'm a choral singer myself, I like having things to do). "Aha," I thought, "we need chorales!" - except finding several appropriate hymns would be pretty difficult, not to mention that in this day and age, I needn't follow Bach's example to the letter. How about prayers, which'd work equally well as a means of reflection?

This is where the internet came in useful. Nothing's finalised as yet, but I like the idea of starting the whole thing off with Mother Theresa's belief that "in this life we cannot do great things; we can only do small things with great love". For the very end, I can think of nothing to beat the post-communion prayer - let's face it, the words "when we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home" are too good to pass up. I still need to find a suitably celebratory text to depict the merry-making on the son's return, but have high hopes in the abilities of my various contacts.

I'm allowing myself one instance of copying the great JSB - well, I was rehearsing the St John Passion for a good deal of last week, you try escaping it! - in that the younger son's decision to return home is to be set against the choir singing different words, taken from James Gibbons' Act of contrition. That said, I may well leave out whatever instrumental accompaniment there is elsewhere (organ or strings, I've yet to decide) from this passage: besides providing a good contrast with the only other aria in the piece (the father's, which wouldn't involve the choir), I find unaccompanied voices a very moving medium, which would make it eminently suitable for the younger son's newly-discovered humility.

In other respects, however, I shall be taking a more modern view: for instance, it would make sense for the thanksgiving chorus still to be going on in the background when the story is taken up again with the elder son's reaction on returning from the field. Some parts will still be independent from what has gone before and what follows, but for the narrative to flow I plan to make an exception of these: where there is a clean break, it has to be for a reason.

One (admittedly very minor) point continues to bother me: the two male soloists are defined by their roles, so what of the alto? "Narrator" sounds incredibly glib and I can't very well call her an Evangelist as the words she sings are Christ's. I know I'm going against the grain by having the tale told by a high voice - settings of the New Testament traditionally cast a tenor as the Evangelist and a bass as Jesus - but just writing "solo alto" next to the part would be a bit weak ...