Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda

Tancredi, a Christian soldier, and Clorinda, a Muslim soldier, have fallen in love. But when Clorinda, disguised as a man, leads a successful attack on a Christian fortress, Tancredi challenges this unknown soldier to a fight for revenge. The battle wages all night long and by dawn Clorinda is severely wounded, though she refuses to tell Tancredi her name. Finally, Clorinda is mortally wounded and falls to Tancredi's feet; only then does he raise her visor and recognize his beloved. Clorinda forgives him and asks Tancredi to baptize her; he grants her this wish as she dies in his arms. 

I Have No Stories To Tell You

Sorrel, a soldier recently returned from deployment, walks up and down the corridors of her home at night, struggling with PTSD. Her husband, Daniel, awakens, and comforts her. This scene repeats. And repeats. Each of the opera’s four scenes depicts a new night, and a new confrontation between the two, loving and gentle at first, but increasingly raw and frustrated. Daniel urges Sorrel to talk to him about her experiences, convinced that this will help mend their relationship, but Sorrel refuses, holding precariously to a safe but lifeless middle place between memories of the past and engagement with the present. Pressured by Daniel and haunted by her memories of a fellow soldier named Noah, Sorrel gradually relents. She tells Daniel how she befriended Noah and then had to hold him as he died, but she leaves out the critical core of her story. The weight of these revelations, both spoken and unspoken, force Sorrel and Daniel each to confront the chasm that has opened between them in their relationship.