For the Night to Wear

Marguerite Yourcenar, whose play, ?The Little Mermaid?, was adapted to serve as the libretto for my opera, will be mentioned several times in these liner notes. She has played an important role in my life. Three works on this CD owe something to her presence. For the Night to Wear, was dedicated to her and to her companion, Grace Frick, both of whom became and remained close friends during their lifetimes. The text of For the Night to Wear was written by Hortense Flexner, a little known but rather remarkable poet who spent her later years on Sutton Island, off the coast of Bar Harbor, Maine, where she met Yourcenar, who lived in nearby Northeast Harbor. Yourcenar, who introduced me to Flexner's poetry, had translated a collection of her poems into French, including this one, that was published in Paris in a bilingual edition.