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A quick overview of Nicholas Maw’s 2002 opera based on William Styron’s 1979 novel.

Premiered

2002

Music by

Nicholas Maw

Libretto by

Nicholas Maw

Language

English

Nicholas Maw first became acquainted with the story of Sophie’s Choice nearly a decade after the 1982 release of the film version of William Styron’s 1979 novel. Several years later, Royal Opera House Covent Garden expressed interest in commissioning the opera, and Maw approached Styron about writing the libretto for an opera. He declined, but suggested Maw write it himself.

The much-anticipated world premiere took place at Covent Garden in December 2002. Sophie’s Choice made its American premiere at Washington National Opera in fall 2006 with the original London cast.

Act I

Summer 1947

Having grown up in the southern states, 22-year-old Stingo comes to New York with the hope of becoming a writer. He rents a room in a boarding house in Brooklyn, where he meets Sophie and Nathan, who are together. Sophie is a Polish Catholic, and Nathan is a Jewish intellectual. Nathan is making a scene with Sophie. After having picked a fight with Stingo about his southern background, he takes off, leaving the two alone. Sophie tells Stingo the story of how she and Nathan first met.

Spring 1947

While searching in a library for a book by an author whose name she mistakenly recalls as “Emil Dickins,” she is curtly dismissed by the librarian. She collapses, unconscious. A young man named Nathan looks after her. He is caring and considerate and accompanies her home. Nathan, who introduces himself as a biologist involved in pharmaceutical research, diagnoses an iron deficiency. Sophie tells him that she works for a chiropractor but that her true love is music. Nathan brings Sophie a book of poems by Emily Dickinson. It is the very book for which she had been searching in vain at the library. He reads her a poem. Sophie tells him that she came to America to start a new life. When he asks her about her “old life,” she speaks of her happy childhood in Krakow, of her father, a law professor, her mother, a music teacher, and her husband, Kasimir Zawistowski, one of her father’s pupils. Nathan “conjures up” a healthy meal for Sophie that is rich in iron.

Summer 1947

Stingo cannot believe Sophie’s story about Nathan’s thoughtfulness. Sophie explains to Stingo that most of the time Nathan is loving and tender, but that he is occasionally overcome by fits of temper where he cannot stop cursing her. Stingo discovers the tattoo on Sophie’s arm. She tells him that she was interned in Auschwitz. Nathan returns and begs Sophie to forgive him. They declare their love for one another.

Act II

Summer 1947, the next morning

Nathan and Sophie invite Stingo to join them on an outing to Coney Island. Stingo does not want to go, having been berated by Nathan the day before. Nathan apologizes, and Stingo allows Sophie to persuade him into coming along. Sophie, Nathan, and Stingo put on costumes. The atmosphere is exuberant. Stingo tells the two that he has come to New York to become a writer. Nathan brings up the subject of the southern states again, mentioning the lynching of Black people. The situation escalates again, but Sophie manages to calm Nathan and Stingo. They set off together for Coney Island.

Over the course of the summer, the friendship between the three grows stronger. Stingo begins an epic novel on the American south, and Nathan is his first reader. During Nathan’s conversations with Stingo, Sophie is continually haunted by experiences from the past which she describes to Stingo. She remembers how her father, Professor Bieganski, dictated anti-Semitic texts to her as a child back in 1938, texts which called for the complete extermination of the Jews. Nathan arrives and interrupts Sophie’s story. In a festive mood, he reports on his research success and proposes a toast to Stingo: “...to the next great American author.”

Act III

Sophie is waiting alone in a bar, once again plagued by memories. Images of the spring of 1943 come back to her. Back then, her friend Wanda had asked her to take part in the resistance against the occupation and to prevent the transport of Polish children to Germany to be raised as German citizens. Sophie refused. Following the execution of her father and her husband, she had been left to look after her children alone. Although Sophie did not commit to supporting the resistance movement, she was nevertheless deported to Auschwitz along with her two children and Wanda after being caught smuggling food to Warsaw. While Wanda was executed shortly after arrival, the camp commandant, Rudolf Höss, employed Sophie as his typist. Sophie recalls how she became both victim and accomplice. She translated Polish letters for Höss, becoming witness to conversations between the commandant and the camp doctor. She told him about the anti-Semitic writings of her father. Höss was attracted to the beautiful Sophie and raped her. Sophie tried to convince Höss to save her son.

Stingo is shocked by her stories. Sophie returns to the present and asks after Nathan. Nathan enters the bar, insanely jealous. He accuses Sophie of having an affair with her boss and calls Stingo an author of southern states comics. In front of the guests, he guilts Sophie for still being alive while millions of others perished in Auschwitz.

Act IV

Nathan’s brother Larry asks Stingo to come and visit him. He confides that Nathan’s attacks are symptomatic of his madness, schizophrenia, and drug addiction, and that his brother’s whole identity is based on lies. Back in the boarding house, Stingo receives a phone call from Nathan, who suspects him of being Sophie’s lover. Stingo tries in vain to placate him, but Nathan threatens to kill both of them. Sophie and Stingo flee New York. Stingo declares his love for Sophie. He wants them to settle on his father’s farm and start a family. Sophie cautiously turns him down and tells him of her arrival in Auschwitz, a story she has never told anyone before. Upon arrival, she declared herself an Aryan and a Catholic, distancing herself from the other prisoners in order to save herself and her children. Consequently, the camp doctor offered Sophie the privilege of deciding which of her two children she would opt to save. Because she was unable to choose, the doctor threatened to kill both children. Sophie ultimately made her choice. At the conclusion of the story, Sophie collapses. Stingo comforts her. They sleep with one another. The next morning Stingo finds himself alone. He discovers a farewell letter from Sophie, explaining that she must return to Nathan. Nathan and Sophie have died by suicide. Stingo finds the volume of poetry that Nathan had given Sophie lying beside the two bodies. Stingo will pass on the story of Nathan and Sophie.

—Synopsis courtesy of Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Listen to the Story

Angelika Kirchschlager as a concentration camp survivor in Nicholas Maw’s opera Sophie’s Choice. Karin Cooper/Washington National Opera.

Presented by Washington National Opera, host Saul Lilienstein takes you through the musical world of Nicholas Maw’s 2002 opera based on William Styron’s 1979 novel, Sophie's Choice.

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