Andrea Modica works with sensual love as her base but aligned with a darkness which is pervasive, so much so that it can color your dreams.

The work is not hopeless but breathless, as if there is an atmospheric gauze placed over the larynx so that breathing has to be softened, done in silence so that walking the tight rope between an exalted life and a sultry death. You shan’t emit too loud a sound. The balance is so tentative, so tactile, so absolutely fragile that there is the danger of tipping the scales of mortality in clear sight.

Surprisingly from time to time, there is an innocence which floats to the surface of your heart. From out of the darkness a blink of tender rapture appears. Not exactly an unintended gust at the table, but a delightful one and one which holds the work in some balance, informing us that within the deep concerns of mortality there is a bubbling assortment of impulses that allows life to be felt as whole. to be suspended within wonder is part of the oratorio singing along with the dread, giving all parts of the work credence and organizing sound, as if symphonic, rather than just an obsessive dirge.