Diary of One Who Vanished
Description
A Cycle of Love Songs Translated by the Nobel Laureate
"Dappled woodland light,
Spring well chill and bright,
Eyes like stars at night,
Open knees so white.
Four things death itself won't cover,
Unforgettable forever."
In 1917, while reading his local newspaper, the Czech composer Leos Janacek discovered the poems that he was to set to music in his song cycle Diary of One Who Vanished. Written by Ozef Kalda and published anonymously, they tell the story of a farmer's boy who abandons his home because he has fallen in love with a Gypsy. These new English versions by Seamus Heaney were commissioned by the English National Opera for a series of international performances, which opened in Dublin in October 1999.
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Persons
Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. His poems, plays, translations, and essays include Opened Ground, Electric Light, Beowulf, The Spirit Level, District and Circle, and Finders Keepers. Robert Lowell praised Heaney as the "most important Irish poet since Yeats."
Leos Janacek (1854-1928) was a Czech composer, musicologist, and folklorist who pioneered the adaptation of regional folk tunes into modern musical compositions. His most famous pieces include Jenufa, The Cunning Little Vixen, and his adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's From the House of the Dead.
Ozef Kalda is the pseudonym of Josef Kalda (1871-1921), who was a prolific, genre-crossing writer from the Moravian Wallachia region of the Czech Republic. His best-known works include the novel Ogan [The Lads] and the story collection Jalovinky [Idle Talk].