Description
Written by Jane K (Evgeniya Kozhevnikova) for 2021 Fresh Squeezed Opera Vocal Lab, “Salt” is a setting of the poem by Katherine E. Young.
According to Young, “Salt” has its roots in the 1892 version of Paul Sébillot’s “The Dirty Shepherdess” that appears in The Green Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang. A vain king asks his daughter to tell him how much she loves him, and she says she loves him as much as the salt in her food. Deeply offended, the king disowns his daughter and forces her to flee his kingdom but, after a series of plot twists, is forced to admit that salt is indeed the best thing in life.
This piece can be paired with “I Cry Out” – another Jane K’s setting for mezzo soprano and piano of “Postcards from the Floating World” by Katherine E. Young.
Range: B3 to G5
Duration: ca. 3’
Salt
by Katherine E. Young
Not like sun sinking
in vermilion cloud,
nor moon sailing
a silver-brushed sea,
not like waves shushing
mutinous seabirds,
nor dew beading
a web, not agelessly,
not immortally
– though I, too, am these –
but simply, as in the story
of the woman who
counts her devotion
in grains of salt,
seasoning
that gives life its savor:
that’s what I’ll be
for you, o love.
“Salt” appears in Woman Drinking Absinthe by Katherine E. Young (Alan Squire Publishing, 2021).
