Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer: Before It All Goes Dark
“The impact of Before It All Goes Dark could hardly have been more potent. The story of Mac explores antisemitism on subtle levels. Thanks to Heggie’s evocative music, the wounds he suffers along the way resonate long after we leave the theater.”
- Musical America
This world premiere recording of Jake Heggie’s (Musical America’s Composer of the Year 2025) opera tells the compelling true story of Gerald “Mac” McDonald.
The opera is made up of two parts: the prologue and the actual opera. In the prologue we imagine an intimate soirée in Emil Freund's Musical Salon in Prague, 1939, featuring music by contemporary composers who, like Emil, would soon be swept up in the Holocaust. The works are an important memento of these artists and their work. What remains is the music and the memory.
Gerald “Mac” McDonald is a gravely ill and deeply troubled Vietnam War veteran, which was first reported by Howard Reich in the Chicago Tribune. Mac grew up poor, angry, and disenfranchised in the suburbs of Chicago, his family’s Jewish ancestry hidden from him – until Reich tracked him down as part of an investigation inspired by his own family’s experiences during the Holocaust.
When Mac learned that he was heir to a priceless art collection stolen by the Nazis, the two men embarked on a quest to Eastern Europe to uncover secrets of the past. Jewish Czech businessman Emil Freund spent years building a magnificent art collection of impressionist, modernist and abstract paintings.
Jake Heggie: Before it all goes dark, libretto by Gene Scheer, based on "Mac's Journey" by Howard Reich
Track list:
Prologue:
- David Beigelman, Text by lsaiah Shpigl: Makh tsu di Eygelekh
- Robert Dauber: Serenata
- Erwin Schulhoff: Duo for Violin and Cello - II. Zingaresca
- Erwin Schulhoff: Sonata for Flute and Piano - III. Aria. Andante
- Erwin Schulhoff: Jazz Etudes for Solo Piano – Tango
- Erwin Schulhoff: Concertino for Flute, Viola and Double Bass - IV. Rondino. Allegro gaio
Opera:
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: Scene 1 “Mac’s Apartment”
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: Aria “Something beautiful”
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: 9. Scene 2 Manesova Street, Prague
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: Aria: “A prisoner of her past”
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: “You like art”
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: “There was talk”
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: Scene 3 The Train to Lodz 1939
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: Scene 4 Jewish Museum in Prague
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: Aria “Uncle Emil!”
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: “Where’s the Museum Director”
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: Transition Wall of Remembrance and Journey Home
- Heggie: Before It All Goes Dark: Scene 5 Return to Mac’s Apartment