DESIGNER MUSIC LTD / DML
The Colour Of The Wind
The Colour of the Wind is based on Andre Gide's short story, or novella, ' La Symphonie Pastorale ' published in France, 1919. The original is a narrative in the first person which is divided into two 'notebooks' ; this version follows that layout in having two acts or parts. To the right of the picture you will find a menu providing links to extracts from the score and the libretto.
The story concerns a young blind girl who is found by the narrator, a Protestant parson, while attending the deathbed of an old woman on the edge of his parish. The girl appears also to be deaf and dumb, having received no education, or even attention, since birth. She is suffering from almost complete sensory deprivation, although her only physical infirmity is blindness. Gide evidently knew the true story of Laura Bridgeman, to which the pastor refers, and the first part of the narrative concerns itself with the girl's education following very much the lines of Laura Bridgeman's case. However right from the start the pastor feels there is a divine dimension to his efforts and it is here that the first seeds of disaster are sown.
They are like great bells of flame bells of azure,
filled with perfume of love and
swinging in the evening breeze.
Why do you say there are none there before us?
I feel them. I see the meadow filled with them.
Gertrude (the blind girl)