Enemy Slayer is the first oratorio based on the creation story of the Navajo. The story concerns the twins Monster Slayer and Child Born for Water who (as Marley Shebala’s notes tell us) went to war against the monsters who threatened their people. After destroying all the monsters the twins returned home but started having nightmares, smelling the blood of the monsters and screaming in horror. They wanted to be alone, lost their appetites, became depressed, angry, violent, and thought of suicide. Today we would say that they were suffering post–traumatic stress disorder. Thus the Navajo people created the Anaa’jí (Enemy Way), one of the most sacred of the Navajo ceremonies and one which is still in use to cleanse and heal warriors returning from today’s wars.

Composer Grey, his librettist Laura Tohe (an award winning Navajo poet) and photographer Deborah O’Grady said that they wanted this work to be a bridge between the Navajo and non–Navajo worlds. To this end Tohe’s libretto is based on the idea of the Anaa’jí—to quote it would be sacrilegious—and, according to the notes (on which I have drawn very closely at times), she gave shape to Grey’s visionary concept. In Enemy Slayer we follow the trials and tribulations of Seeker, a man suffering battle fatigue. He goes through the vicissitudes suffered by the twins, and sings of his feelings; the chorus, variously representing his parents, grandparents, ancestors and the Holy Ones respond to his dilemma.

When he wrote the work Grey was composer in residence for the Phoenix Symphony and the organisation obviously wanted to give their man the best they could offer for what could possibly be his magnum opus. So what did Grey deliver? This almost 70 minute oratorio is written in a very conventional voice, there’s nothing here which would scare the horses, and there’s no real high point which stands head and shoulders above the rest. There are also some very obvious and embarrassingly twee sections, such as the sound of battle at the end of the third (of five) sections. The material is generally unmemorable, and far too slight to sustain 70 minutes of music, and although the work has pretensions to be Epic, it simply fails to satisfy in such a way. Most importantly, there is no feeling of Native Americana! Only the words give it the cachet of being married to the great Navajo more....

Review By ,Pizzicato,September 2009


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Review By Uncle Dave Lewis,Allmusic.com,April 2009