Everlasting Faint

Composer: Scott Gendel
Librettist: Sandra Flores-Strand
Company: Madison Opera

Synopsis

In 1897, Elva Heaster Shue was murdered by her husband Trout in Greenbrier, West Virginia. The coroner quickly determined she died of natural causes (deeming it an “everlasting faint,” a dismissive diagnosis for women’s unexplained deaths in those times). But not long after Elva’s death, her mother Mary starts receiving nightly visits from Elva’s ghost, soon followed by visits from the ghosts of other women from Trout’s past. Fighting through layers of bias in cases involving crimes against women, Mary works alongside these avenging ghosts to bring Trout to trial and to justice.