Music / Anthracite Fields

"Buried deep inside the earth.
Layer upon layer upon layer buried deep.
Heat. Pressure. Time."

Anthracite Fields is an oratorio by Julia Wolfe, first performed in 2014. Wolfe also wrote the libretto, some of which is based on interviews and children's rhymes.

The oratorio examines Pennsylvania's coal mining industry — the titular anthracite fields — from different perspectives.

Unlike an opera, an oratorio is not intended to be fully dramatised onstage with sets and costumes. The story is told purely through music, with soloists and choir singing the words of the libretto. Soloists may still represent specific characters, but no acting is involved.

In the first movement. "Foundation", the choir lists hundreds of names — men who died in mining accidents. The second, "Breaker Boys", looks at the lives and work of the children who sorted the debris from the coal. The third, "Speech", is built around a speech union leader John L. Lewis gave in 1947, emphasising the human cost of coal mining.

The final two movements present a very different view. "Flowers" has a miner's daughter talking about the mining families' gardens, listing all the pretty flowers that grew there. Lastly, "Appliances" is a patchwork of advertising taglines, covering the many industries and products that relied on coal.

The libretto is free to read online here.

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Anthracite Fields contains examples of the following tropes:

• All in the Manual: The libretto notes provide context for many aspects of the oratorio, including the sources for all of the quoted text.
  • The libretto confirms that the first movement's long list of names is a list of the dead, naming some of the men killed in Pennsylvania's mining accidents between 1869 and 1916.
  • The libretto identifies union leader John L. Lewis as the author of the third movement's central speech (although some productions have also named him by projecting details of the speech onto the stage wall).
• Breather Episode: The first three movements include an unsettling list of the dead, tales of fearful children losing their fingernails as "Breakers Boys" and a grim speech about how industrial America will "grind up human flesh and bones". The fourth, penultimate, movement is "Flowers" — a miner's daughter talking about their gardens and listing the flowers that grew there.
• The Dead Have Names: During the first movement, "Foundation", the choir sings a long list of names — men who died in Pennsylvania's mining accidents between 1869 and 1916. It's initially limited to men named John with short one-syllable surnames. There are still several hundred of them. The movement ends with another list - this time of longer, more distinctive names, illustrating how the miners' heritage was connected to different nations and cultures.
• Drone of Dread: The first movement, "Foundation", opens with a low drone, ominous and atmospheric. After a couple of minutes it's interrupted by a Scare Chord, which returns to interrupt the drone a couple more times before the choir starts singing a long list of men named John, all of whom died in Pennsylvania mining accidents.
• Ensemble Cast: The oratorio looks at the mining industry from different angles, but doesn't really have a plot or protagonist — it's closer to a set of monologues, with no interaction between the different people who speak. The second movement features the recollections of a nameless breaker boy (based on an interview with real breaker boy Anthony "Shorty" Slick), the third movement is built around a speech by union leader John L. Lewis, and the fourth movement is largely a list of flowers prompted by a miner's daughter talking about their gardens (inspired by an interview with miner's daughter Barbara Powell). Some productions name Lewis, projecting his name onto the stage wall. The others are only identified by the libretto notes.
• Historical Domain Character: The third movement, "Speech", is largely based around a 1947 speech by John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW). Lewis is portrayed by one of the soloists and the words of his speech are directly used. He's directly named in the libretto, but not in the performance itself (although some productions have projected his name, along with the words of his speech, onto the back of the stage).
• Ironic Nursery Tune: "Breaker Boys", the second movement, is a Dramatic Choir Number that starts with the "Mickey Pick-Slate, early and late" street rhyme and turns it into a condemnation of child labor, with a list of children's ages, a mention of how scared they were and a description of how their fingers bled and they lost their fingernails to their work, all for "8 cents an hour".
• List Song:
  • "Foundation", the first movement, lists over three hundred names. As confirmed in the libretto notes, they're all men who died in Pennsylvania mining accidents between 1869 and 1916. 298 of them are chosen because they had the first name John and a one-syllable surname, just to make the point about how many men died mining there in that time.
  • The third movement, "Flowers", starts by quoting a miner's daughter, who says that "We all had flowers. We all had gardens". It then lists the many types of flowers that grew in those gardens.
• Oratorio: Anthracite Fields is written as an oratorio with multimedia elements. It's sung, not acted, but it's also intended to be staged with film footage and other additions (e.g. the text of the third movement's main speech) projected onto the wall behind the choir and musicians.
• Retraux: The third movement, "Speech", begins with the sort of background static that's normally associated with old audio recordings. It's paired with a sung version of a 1947 speech by a Historical Domain Character, union leader John L. Lewis. The static dies away as Lewis continues to speak. Some productions have also projected the text of the speech onto the back of the stage, in black and white, with lines and flickers to simulate old film quality.
• Shout-Out: The final movement, "Appliances", references Phoebe Snow, a fictional socialite created as part of an advertising campaign for the DL&W railroad. The final lines of the oratorio are a pastiche in the style of Snow's comments.
  “My gown stays white from morn till night. My gown stays white.
  On the road to Anthracite.”

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"Mickey Pick-Slate
early and late
that was the poor little breaker boys fate."