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The musical HYPATIA begins at the turn of the century when an OLD DIVA wanders the grand opera stage where she performed during her career. The theatre is slated to be torn down the next day. Her deepest wish is that the Heroines she portrayed be set free from their tragic plots. After she trips on a trap door, she is visited in a dream by HYPATIA, Crown Priestess of Destiny, who proclaims, "Souls born from man's imagination, challenge the premise of your creation. Stop you can be free - You can change your destiny."
In the journey HYPATIA has set for her, Carmen (from the opera by Bizet) sings a lament, confronts her composer trying out for her own part, then visits the author of the book, Mérimée, in his Paris garret. At the end she changes her destiny to gain the strength of the Indian snake goddess Nagina. a free spirit.
AT RISE: A mist lifts from the floor covering the spider web backstage as HYPATIA emerges.
HYPATIA
A human destiny is to be born live and die
But a character in a myth, story or plot
Is not bound by a simple knot
As the threads of each story begin to unfold
Their shape is pliable like liquid gold
The story the gold has etched
Can be changed if you pass these tests
Heroines for the first test, you must have desire
For the second, confront your composers
For the third, your wishes come true
Then you must face yourselves
And choose destiny's role
Around the cosmos edge to edge
All matter spins on my spider's thread
AT RISE: A large Tarot Card of Death (the Hanged Man) is depicted on a narrow flat hanging center stage. As the first bars of "Carmen's Lament" play, CARMEN dances on stage with her tambourine followed by her gypsy chorus who dance with her in a swirling flamenco. As they dance in circles around the Card, they turn it to discover that it has an identical picture on both sides. They try to pull it down and destroy it in vain.
CARMEN'S LAMENT (sung)
When I died, I died with pride
But now I've died a thousand times
While my sweet toreador won victory
Don Jose struck a knife in me
Now every time my opera plays
My death inspires deeper rage
To die once is just
But each time I say enough
I, Carmen
A gypsy borne wild and free
An ugly plot was hurled on me
My character expresses criminality
To show men's fear of sexuality
On a summer's day in Seville
I stole a heart from Micaela
She so fair loved Don Jose
While on his heart my flower lay
When in anger I knife a woman
Don Jose guards me in prison
I seduce Don with my eyes, my lips
He cuts the chain off my wrists
When we escape to the mountain cliffs
Don joins our gang - his life split
A deserter now, a smuggler - he
Only falls deeper in love with me
But the brave toreador has won my heart
My fate is sealed when I pick the Card of Death
Spades - A grave
Off with the pure Micaela
Don Jose sees his dying mother
Vivo Vivo Escamillo
The bullfighter is my new lover
To the bullring Don Jose has brought a knife
He stabs me - I picked the vile Death Card twice
When I died, I died with pride
Now every time the opera plays
My death inspires deeper rage
To die once is just
But each time I say enough
Stop I want to be free
I want to change my destiny
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