When a parent starts losing memory, it can challenge a child who becomes the caregiver.
Cleveland Baroque ensemble Les D茅lices commissioned a new work that mirrors the realities of caring for a parent with dementia by looking at an ancient myth from half-way around the world.
While caring for his own ailing parents, Grammy Award-winning tenor Nicholas Phan discovered a Chinese story of a man who鈥檚 lost his memory and his son who wants to cure him.
鈥淚 happened to be spending a lot of time at home in my childhood bedroom because my parents' health was declining,鈥� Phan told a pre-concert audience in 2025. 鈥淎nd I found this very tattered book of Chinese myths that I used to read when I was a kid and a teenager.鈥�
At the time, Phan was also working with Les D茅lices on the group鈥檚 Mythology Project, led by artistic director Debra Nagy.
鈥淭he Mythology Project is a multi-year initiative from Les D茅lices to expand the repertoire of cantatas. And a cantata is a special Baroque musical form,鈥� Nagy said. 鈥淭he way that we are understanding it for the Mythology Project is a secular piece, often on a subject of mythology, almost like a miniature drama.鈥�
They took the Chinese story to award-winning Cleveland poet Dave Lucas to put into a lyrical form that could be sung.
鈥淧oets don't often get to collaborate,鈥� Lucas said. 鈥淭he idea that the end product here was not going to just be a poem, but something that was living and breathing and being performed, that was something that really appealed to me.鈥�
After the libretto was complete, Vietnamese American composer Viet Cuong wrote the score with the finished piece, 鈥淎 Moment鈥檚 Oblivion鈥� premiering at the Heights Theater in Cleveland Heights in February 2025.
The title comes from a line in the myth where the father, who鈥檚 cured by a scholar, becomes terribly upset because he was happier when he couldn鈥檛 remember anything.
鈥淗is aria is a curse upon everybody who has brought him to this place. A curse upon the scholar, a curse upon his wife, his son, a curse upon life itself, because he was blissful in his ignorance. He was blissful in that moment's oblivion,鈥� Lucas said.
Nagy said the lesson of the myth and the cantata comes from the son assuming his father wanted to be cured.
鈥淪omething that I understand from health care professionals, when they're working with families who have a family member who's experiencing dementia or Alzheimer's鈥� is that they encourage you to meet them where they are in that moment,鈥� Nagy said.
Even if it鈥檚 a moment of oblivion.
continued this past February with 鈥淟a Diosa,鈥� inspired by Central American folklore, by Nicaraguan American composer Gilda Lyons. The project finishes in February 2027 with a new commission by composer Damien Geter drawing on African and Norse mythology. A recording of the Mythology Project is also planned for release in 2027.
