In the Half-light explores the subjects of displacement, belonging, and home. It reflects on the meaning and simultaneously unsettling and exhilarating sensations of moving from one physical space to another. This seven-movement song cycle for orchestra and soprano was born from a close collaboration between composer Zosha Di Castri, soprano Barbara Hannigan, and author Tash Aw. Aw’s moving libretto evokes not only the experience of human migration (which the current Ukrainian refugee crisis renders all the more relevant), but also a more universal questioning: what happens to our sense of being, and of self, when we move from a place we know, to a place we don’t, then back again? How do we recalibrate feelings of attachment; how do we fit into a landscape (both cultural and physical), and how do we appear to others and ourselves?
The music takes shape on the threshold between darkness and light, the moment before dawn. Hovering on the cusp of change, it opens up spaces where everything that has seemed impossible can suddenly be realized, just for a moment, before we pass into another world. As Hannigan has stated, “It is mystery and love and heimweh (homesickness) and solitude and sehnsucht (wistful longing).”
During the collaborative process, Tash prompted Barbara for a photo or a few lines of description of a place that was meaningful to her. He said it could be, “Where you grew up, or where you live now, or a place that troubles or unsettles you. Anywhere that provides a strong emotional resonance.” Barbara in turn shared the story of her move from Holland to France, when she put all her belongings in a Shurgard Storage unit in Paris. She would go there occasionally to get a dress or a pair of shoes, living otherwise out of a few suitcases in various Airbnbs while on tour. But, she realized with a jolt that the neighboring storage unit had people in it, cooking, living, breathing. She described how only their feet were visible from the bottom of the storage unit door–two transient existences, connected by a shared physical space, yet both living very different experiences, with no one ever fully meeting. She also spoke of a close supportive relationship she built over the past three years with a teenage refugee who traveled from Afghanistan to Europe, and the evolution of his story as a “sans papiers” in France.
Tash also discussed his own experiences moving from Malaysia to the UK as a young person, then later to France. Themes of migration and displacement run through several of his novels (Five Star Billionaire and We, The Survivors), including his latest book Strangers on a Pier: A Portrait of a Family, which unpacks his own complicated family story of migration and adaptation. Two works which have underpinned his thinking on the subject as well as the writing of this libretto are Aimé Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, and Paul Celan’s Atemwende — very different texts, but both linked by a furious sense of displacement. He was drawn to how these works probe that moment when we are on the cusp of change, when everything is on the turn — when light is about to break, when the in breath comes to the out breath, when we are not fully one thing or another — not fully awake or fully asleep; a place of possibility. It is those in-between spaces that the music of In the Half-light hopes to tap into, those contrasting transitions from one moment to another that don’t last, but which are somehow crucial to our sense of self.
Tash’s spare but emotionally rich text provides an ideal framework for Di Castri’s imaginative and atmospheric orchestral writing. At times, the music evokes sounds of nature, nostalgia, travel, and time passing, as well as more complex, abstract textures, contrasted with naked lyrical vocal lines. Ultimately, her music seeks to express this search for belonging and a yearning to connect. In an effort to capture that which cannot be fully expressed through words, there are also passages where the voice sings non-semantic utterances, touching at something otherworldly, or a “half-light of language,” if you will. A haunting loon-like lullaby returns at various moments in the piece, calling out, listening for a response within the orchestra. This eerie wail, a sound associated with night or dusk, is a strong childhood memory for both Barbara and Zosha. The “contact calls” — ways for the loon to reach out and make sure their mate or offspring is there, to connect across the expanse of the landscape – is a powerful and lonely sound that one never forgets.
Finally, Zosha dedicates this piece to the memory of her late uncle, Matthew Di Castri, who unexpectedly passed away last summer. As one of the only other artists in her family, his death took on a special significance for the composer. Though he lived a hermit-like, off-the-grid existence in British Columbia and did not often publicly share his artistic work, he was a prolific painter and powerful creator. His works are beautiful, raw, and haunting, unsettling, at times angry and restless. Zosha chose a reference painting for each song to serve as an emotional canvas for the music, posting his artwork on her studio wall while composing the piece. It is not essential to know these images to appreciate the work; rather, they served as an impetus to achieve each movement’s affect and emotional resonances. This piece at once mourns Matthew’s crossing of the threshold from life to death and all the unknown this provokes, and also celebrates his electric use of color, dancing brush strokes, gentle soul, and ability to revel in the joy and freedom of being a radical outsider.
Interweaving the personal experiences of the contributing artists — their movings about the world, loves and losses, reflections on rootedness, transience, and death — In the Half-light thus hopes to resonate in this highly unique and shared moment we are living, when so many are grappling with the liminal spaces we all inhabit.