An Immigrant's Story ...

As a young woman, Juliane Heyman fled from the Nazis with her family

from Danzig, Poland. She had many narrow escapes during the long

dangerous journey throughout Europe. Most of her relatives died in the

Holocaust. But she and her parents eventuallyarrived in America. She

powerfully described the emotion on her arrival..."When our boat passed

the Statue of Liberty in New York, cliché or not, it was and remains to this

day the symbol of our family’s deliverance. I was moved beyond words

and looked forward to a new life in the United States without the dangers

of the past."

Yet within a year, after successfully evading the Nazis, she was arrested by

American police! An avid hiker, Julie was exploring the Poconos

mountains in Pennsylvania with another European friend on spring break.

Police arrested them on suspicion of prostitution! Why? Because she was

hiking with a rucksack (backpack), something

uncommon in the U.S. in the 1 940s. They took her to a boarding

housethat night and all was well.

Rucksack is a 14 minute monodrama for voice and piano that intertwines

both of these stories—one harrowing, the other comical—to impart the

emotional contrast between the most brutal oppression and true liberty.

It speaks to the United States as a beacon of hope for democracy and

refuge.

The dramatic singing role incorporates speech, rhythmic speech, and bel

canto, switching between the roles of narrator, Julie,and the Police Chief.

The musical style of Rucksack alternates between a sung Americana style

for Julie's adventure in the Poconos, a style established by in the 1 930s

and 1 940s by Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Harold Shapero, and many

others) and a spoken quasi-German Expressionist style (tritones, fourths, fifths)

for her flight from the Nazis in Europe.