Humanity Divine

for medium voice and piano

Duration - approx. 20 min.

Program Notes:

I initially wrote Humanity Divine in the spring of 2005.  The original text consisted of passages of Nikos Kazanztakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ.  However, acquiring the rights became a quixotic dream, so in the fall of 2007 I rewrote the text myself, using the themes of the original text as inspiration.  Not wanting to take the brunt of writing such a loaded text myself, I decided to use passages from a variety of sources, including The Bible, The Qur’an, Dante’s Inferno, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and a fragment from the original text.  The result is a much more subdued and rhapsodic text, with many allusions and ambiguity.  I’m not expecting it to have the same power as the original text, but I hope that it can be something else, something new and unusual and powerful and haunted.

The story remains the same.  Jesus learns of his divinity and intended fate.  Since he is mortal he has doubt about his divinity.  This leads him to the desert where he fasts for forty days and nights, all the while tempted by Satan.  After this he heads toward Jerusalem.  He is betrayed by Judas (a somewhat sympathetic character in this telling) and crucified.  But, before he dies he is given one final temptation, that of a normal, mortal life.  It is Judas who finally arrives and helps Jesus understand what is occurring.  Rid of the final temptation, Jesus dies and the rest, they say, is history.

Although not intended as blasphemous, lots of the material is counter to what conservative churches like to portray as being “Christ-like”.  But is it too hard to imagine a man who doesn’t understand what he is?  A man that is conflicted between the human feelings that he sees as being natural, and the Godly feelings that are forced upon him?  And this man who is or maybe isn’t the last possible hope for mankind must be tempted to simply be a man and not a God, for to think one is God would be vanity and therefore a sin?  This theological quagmire leads Christ to his last temptation, to forsake his death for a good, mortal life with a wife, kids, and happiness.  But to deny this temptation, to choose suffering and death is what I find fascinating and truly God-like.

 

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This piece will be premiered in Feb. 2008 by Ashly Evans.