the knock

Music by Aleksandra Vrebalov
Libretto by Deborah Brevoort

The opera begins by following the lives of several military wives as they come home from work to an empty house while their husbands are deployed to Fallujah during the surge of Iraq. Aishah McNair prepares dinner and eats alone, before sitting at the window to look at the moon at the same time as Jarrett, her deployed husband; Jo Jenner compulsively channel surfs the TV and talks to her newborn baby as she waits for a scheduled phone call that doesn’t come from her husband Kelsey. We also meet Army Lt. Gonzalez who watches war movies on TV and frets over why he was assigned to stay on the home front; he would much prefer to be in battle with his buddies in Fallujah.

Lt Gonzalez receives a phone call from his commanding officer, giving him an assignment in Ft. Carson. Colorado. We don’t know what it is, but we do know it’s urgent—he has two hours to get there to complete it. The Commanding Officer’s Wife (C.O.W.) calls Aishah to tell her that she just received word that the base in Iraq is on “black out” again. She is gathering the wives together at her home, which is Army protocol whenever communications are cut off from the war front.

Lt Gonzalez jumps in his car and begins to drive. Aishah, Jo and the chorus of military wives gather at the home of the COW. They bake cookies, play bunco, surf the web and binge on food. No one knows what is going on; the older spouses take the situation in stride; they’ve been through this ritual many times before. Jo, who is new to Army life, becomes increasingly anxious as the evening progresses. Lt. Gonzalez is anxious too. This is a new assignment for him, and he doesn’t feel prepared for it

When Lt. Gonzales reaches Ft. Carson, he pulls off the road to find a place where he can change out of his civilian clothes and into his officer’s uniform. The only place he can find is a McDonalds. He ducks into the men’s room there and changes his clothes. Meanwhile, Aishah tries to comfort Jo who has become distraught over having picked a fight with her husband on the day he left for Iraq.

Lt Gonzalez arrives at the COW’s house. He reviews the Army protocol for how to deliver a death notification. It is his first “knock” (death notification) and he struggles emotionally with what he has to do. He decides to wait until the last minute before going to the door. When his time is up, he slowly marches up to the door and knocks.

When Lt. Gonzalez steps in the house, the women immediately know why he is there; he is wearing the special uniform reserved for “the knock.” But which one of them will receive the knock? The women watch and wait in agony.

Lt. Gonzalez slowly marches up to Aishah and gives her the ritual salute, indicating that she is the one receiving the knock. And then, he asks if she is Jo Jenner. Aishah, who is doubled over in grief, is instantly transported to joy when she realizes that the knock is not for her. But her grief quickly returns when she realizes that Jo, the young Army wife with the newborn child, is the one who has just lost her husband. As she comforts Jo, Lt. Gonzalez holds Jo’s baby, and realizes that delivering the knock is the hardest job of all— harder than anything he would have to do in battle.

Jo runs out of the house with her baby. Surrounded by the chorus of military wives, she watches the stars fall as the sun rises and morning comes.

The Knock was co-commissioned by The Glimmerglass Festival through a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

“The Knock” Illustration: © Daria Petrilli - Licensee Chiara Roilo