Kathryn Doloris Daller

This festival commemorated the 50th anniversary of D.H. Lawrence's death. The idea for this festival originated with Anthony Branch and James Levy of Taos, and Tony Church of London, England. Church envisioned the 1980 festival in the same style as the 1970 Festival. Planning for the festival began early in 1979 with an appeal for outside funding which eventually was obtained from the New Mexico Arts Division and the New Mexico Tourism and Travel Division. Similar to 1970, the main events of the festival included a conference, exhibition, recital, plays, and showing of the film, "The Priest of Love". The conference was held at the Greer Garson Performing Arts Center, College of Santa Fe in Santa Fe, N.M. The theme was "D.H. Lawrence: Contemporary Life and Literature." Prominent American and British scholars and renowned authors were asked to discuss the relevance of Lawrence's work in prose, poetry and drama as it relates to and effects contemporary attitudes toward sex, religion, class, art, etc. The final list of speakers included N. Scott Momaday, Stephen Spender, A. Alvarez and Edward Albee. The festival's recital, "Eagle in New Mexico, " consisted of extracts from Lawrence's works. Contemporary actors including Jane Alexander, Anne Baxter, Tony Church, Richard Crenna, Julie Harris, Trevor Howard, Gayle Hunnicut, E.G. Marshal, Ian McKellen, Tony Randall, Diana Rigg, Eva Marie Saint, Dean Stockwell, and Elizabeth Taylor were asked to participate. Like the New Mexico D.H. Lawrence Festival of 1970, the 1980 festival was deemed a success by local newspapers and those who attended the event.

The evening's program included the World Premiere of Thea Musgrave's "Last Twilight", a choral setting of Lawrence's "Men in New Mexico" specially commissioned for the occassion.

SYNOPSIS

The Last Twilight is intended as a theatre work, however it may also be performed in concert version. It is written for large chorus divided into MAIN CHORUS (the white man); SEMICHORUS (the Indians); SUPERNUMERARIES (torchbearers); PENITENTES (a religious sect of flagellants from the Sangre de Christos mountains in New Mexico) and a GUNMAN

The stage can be decorated with plants from the high desert, sumac, juniper and so on. Downstage centre a campfire is laid with Navajo rugs around it. Semichorus, Penitentes and gunman should be in costume; main chorus and torchbearers should wear long black cloaks.

At the first performance in the Soleri Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the orchestra was seated on a bridge above the stage. The four trumpets on a still higher level, two on one side, two on the other. The percussion was in a balcony off the stairs leading down to the stage. In other theaters the orchestra can of course be seated very differently. But it is important to keep the stereophonic positioning of the trumpets.

Tubular bells (chimes) and a big bell to be played by chorus members should be preset upstage. One of the chorus has a small hand drum and another plays an Indian type rattle.