The Sacrifice

The Sacrifice is the story of a military drone pilot who makes deadly strikes at a distance and ultimately must confront the reality and torment of collateral damage.

Principal role

• Steve, a drone pilot (tenor)

Supporting roles

• Wayne, his co-pilot (baritone)
• Jessie, a friend (bass)
• Chrissie, Steve’s eight-year-old daughter (soprano)
• Melinda, Chrissie’s mother and Steve’s wife (mezzo soprano)
• Phyllis, Wayne’s wife, a psychotherapist (mezzo soprano)

Orchestration

2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, 3 percussion, strings

Scenes

All the action takes place in a simple set which, through the use of some key props, serves as Steve and Melinda’s home, a fitness club, the drone control room, a coffee shop, and a hill near their home.

Synopsis of the Libretto of the Opera, "The Sacrifice"

STEVE, 35, is a drone pilot and is having problems with his job. Together with WAYNE, who is in charge of the sensors, he flies drones which survey and attack people who live up to 10,000 miles away and are claimed to be terrorists. Very often they watch and study these people for many days and as a result get to know them quite well: their day to day lives, their wives, their children, and their friends. And when they finally get the order to kill, they do that and then go back to their own family life as though nothing has happened.

STEVE can't bear this anymore; he has become very shorttempered, and MELINDA, his wife, and CHRISSIE, his ten year old daughter, suffer from his volatile moods. In addition, his friend JESSE, who fought in Afghanistan makes fun of his being called a soldier even though he sits in an air conditioned room and fights by operating joy sticks.

WAYNE realizes that STEVE is deteriorating psychologically and suggests that STEVE meet his wife PHYLLIS, who is a psychotherapist. STEVE agrees, but the meeting is a total disaster because PHYLLIS, who is very critical of drone attacks, compares them - in order to provoke STEVE - with terrorist attacks.

The following day STEVE and WAYNE have to conduct an attack, and at the last moment it seems as though the target's daughter comes around the corner of the house just when it is too late for the missile to be redirected and it appears as though she is killed along with her father. STEVE asks their superior if a child was also killed in the attack, and the answer is that it was a dog. STEVE and WAYNE know this cannot be true.

STEVE comes home frantic and depressed. MELINDA cannot calm him down, and while she is in the kitchen making dinner STEVE takes CHRISSIE with him fetching his gun. They leave the house, and a very worried MELINDA calls WAYNE.

STEVE takes CHRISSIE to the place where he was with MELINDA on their wedding day. He tells her the story of the man and his daughter he has just killed, and how the war on terrorism is not like other wars which can be concluded with a peace treaty. That is why as many people as possible must give signals to the world, signals of seriousness and emphasis. And he will be the first to do this by killing what he loves most, and then himself.

MELLINDA, WAYNE, and PHYLLIS have now arrived and are unable to stop him. CHRISSIE, who does not really understand what her father is talking about, takes notice of a strange sound coming nearer. And when she points out this sound to her father he is so startled that she can run to her mother. STEVE raises his gun as if to shoot himself, but drops it when he hears CHRISSIE'S voice calling him. Instead he salutes in the direction of the drone, which is now above him.

(Copyright by Doris Reckewell)

Opera Excerpts