Iris

The monsters of which Iris dreams are all too real. The rake Osaka and the pimp Kyoto spy on her. Deciding to kidnap her, they entice her with a puppet show, a street entertainment in which Osaka will represent Jor – son of the sun god – alongside dancers and strolling players.

The entertainers arrive surrounded by loud and enchanting music, all of which fascinate Iris but not her father. Kyoto introduces himself as Danjuro, the puppet master. As the performance begins an actor sings the part of the lonely Dhia. Kyoto and Osaka see how fascinated Iris is by everything she sees and hears. Osaka steps forward to embody Jor. He sings his seductive serenade, offering Dhia sunlight and warmth; when she dies he will lead her to the eternal realms.

During a ballet sequence, Iris is seized and spirited away towards the city. Il Cieco calls desperately for his daughter. Unable to find her, he falls. A passer-by helps him to his feet and discovers a note and money left behind by Kyoto. He tells the old man that Iris has gone to Yoshiwara, Edo’s red-light district. Believing that his daughter has abandoned him, Il Cieco begs to be taken there, determined to punish her for what he sees as her betrayal.

ACT II

The second act is set in Kyoto’s brothel. Osaka sees the sleeping Iris and exclaims at her beauty. But what if she should resist him? Kyoto tells him that his expensive gifts will persuade her.

Iris awakens in the strange place and is amazed by the richness of her attire. Remembering her father, she bursts into tears. When Osaka approaches her, she retreats, believing him to be Jor. She recalls another dream in which she saw a young girl lying by the shore when out of the sea rose a monster whose tentacles covered her whole body. She begs Osaka to let her return to her father.

Osaka tries to embrace her, but she pulls away; he gives up and leaves. Kyoto decides instead to exhibit Iris on the balcony. When she refuses, he threatens to have her thrown over a precipice. She is placed on the veranda. The screens are opened and Iris instantly attracts attention from a crowd of potential clients. Osaka returns and, seeing Iris displayed before the crowd, is once again struck by her beauty. Yet even now he remains incapable of overcoming his own selfishness and seeing the human being before him.

Il Cieco appears and when the crowd lets him through, he picks up handfuls of mud and hurls them at Iris. Horrified, she throws herself down to the sewer below.

ACT III

In the stagnant waters of the sewer, ragpickers search through the refuse for anything of value. One of them discovers Iris, still dressed in the remnants of her glamorous clothes. Believing her dead, they hesitate to touch her body. But Iris is still alive.

As consciousness slowly returns, she hears within her mind, one after another, the voices of the three men who have destroyed her: Osaka, Kyoto and her blind father. They are no longer simply men, but the voices of three different forms of egoism: Osaka’s desire, Kyoto’s greed and Il Cieco’s possessive love. Each has looked at Iris without ever truly seeing her. Each has demanded something from her, yet none has recognised her as a human being in her own right.

When their voices finally disappear, Iris is left alone. She cannot understand why the world has forced her to suffer so much. Slowly the first rays of the sun appear in the sky and shine down upon her. She feels life renewed within and stretches out her hands towards the sun.

As she dies, Iris is transformed. No longer the child, the daughter, the object of desire or the victim of other people’s selfishness, she becomes the flower whose name she bears. Light floods the stage and her body is lifted towards the sun. And the Sun itself begins to sing. The opera returns to the great hymn with which it began, now transformed into an overwhelming chorus of light and transcendence. Iris has escaped the world that sought to possess her and, in death, becomes immortal — absorbed into the light that she had trusted from the very beginning.