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The Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great

Sam C. Shin, text and music
Kirsten Ashley Wiest, soprano - Child
Emily Kerrigan, mezzo-soprano - Wandering Soul 1/Spirit Mother
Elias Berezin, tenor - Wandering Soul 2/Spirit Monk
Andi Walker, baritone - Wandering Soul 3/Spirit King
Jonathan Keplinger, piano

Program notes:

The Story
This myth from Korea, which has many variations in its retellings, takes place in the 8th century CE in the kingdom of Unified Silla in what is now south-central Korea. The King of Unified Silla wanted to cast a massive bell in honor of his late father. As a Buddhist kingdom, the bell would feature Buddhist motifs, and monks were engaged in procuring donations and metal to assist the project. One day, a monk solicited donations from a poor woman’s home. The woman, having nothing but her young daughter, made a blasphemous joke, suggesting that the monk could take her daughter as an offering to Buddha. After the royal foundry’s attempts to cast the bell resulted in three broken castings, the monk had a dream that if a child was cast into the bell, it would not break. The monk told the King about his dream and the woman and the offer she had made. On the King’s orders, the child was cast into the bell, and it was successfully cast. The bell had a beautiful tone, but its sound resembled the word “mother.”

Historical Background
The origins of this story are as interesting as the story itself. Although it is set in the Three Kingdoms period, it does not appear in any historical Korean records. The first record of the story seems to be from American Protestant missionaries around the turn of the 20th century. The story was disseminated and retold in the West and somehow also became part of the myth behind the bell in Korea. The bell has been designated as National Treasure of Korea No. 29 by the South Korean government and is housed in the National Museum of Gyeongju.

This Micro-Opera
This piece begins “in a place beyond time and space.” The solo fixed media at the opening establishes this sense of place and ends with an actual recording of the bell. The second part, “the Child remembers,” is a poetic retelling of the story from the perspective of the Child with the help of wandering souls. The final section, “the Child mourns,” mimics the style of chorales. I drew from the inscription of the bell for the text sung by the wandering souls, which reflects the Buddhist concerns of the kingdom and contrasts with the simple, worldly text of the Child. The piece ends with a longer recording of the bell being struck.