This Cold Bit Golden Morning

chamber opera in one act

Anna Eilertsen is a young mother living in Brooklyn, New York during the Great Depression. One December evening, she receives a late-night knock on her apartment door. It’s her brother, Hyalmer, who she hasn’t seen since she left Norway a decade prior. Hyalmer is a sailor in the Norwegian Navy, and his ship is docked in New York Harbor for just one night. The two siblings have till dawn to reconnect, resolve their differences, and reaffirm their place in one another’s lives, even as the ocean separates them once more.

Anna Eilertsen is also my great grandmother, and I’ve loved this story since my mother told it to me as a child. There was a time when I thought it would make a great Christmas song, or maybe a touching movie. But when my conducting studies led me to opera in fall of 2024, I quickly found what it was really meant to be: my first opera.

I’m honored to have worked with my dear friend, Calvin Ray Shawler, to tell this story. We began the process in January 2025, recording my mother’s many memories of Anna and deciding what we could draw on to build the character. Mom talked about building cushion forts and playing make-believe with Anna as a child. From this we decided our fictional Anna would be a true dreamer. Maybe America was the make-believe land of her youth in Norway? How could she convince her brother to believe the same? How would she feel when she couldn’t?

We embraced the circularity of the story. Anna left Hyalmer to sail across the sea, and at the end of this December night, Hyalmer must do the same. In our opera, these stories unfold side by side, ultimately converging in a final quartet at the moment of sunrise. Anna and Hyalmer must find peace living in two worlds at once.

The libretto is in English, with the exception of quotes from the Norwegian folk song “I denne søte juletid”, meaning “In this delightful Christmas time”. I found the text for this song in a small folio of Norwegian carols gifted and passed down through the generations to me. The opera begins with an arrangement of this tune and leans on it as a theme for home and sibling love throughout the piece.

Goodbyes were certainly on my mind as I composed this piece for my senior recital at Oberlin, full of excitement for my next steps yet still fully attached to the wonderful place I would soon be leaving. In many ways, the process of writing this piece was my own reckoning with the need to live in two worlds at once.

• Matthew Thomas Brown

This Cold But Golden Morning was premiered in Oberlin’s Warner Concert Hall on Sunday, April 26th, 2026 with Rebekah Grande as Anna, Will Sulkow as Hyalmer, Samantha Lewis as Young Anna, Isaiah Gallegos as Young Hyalmer, and the composer conducting.