‘I would prefer not to’: With this polite but irrefutable phrase the ‘scrivener’ Bartleby, in Herman Melville’s novella of 1853, reacts to any pleading, instruction or command, accepting even death as a final consequence of his gentle resistance to the demands of life. ‘I would prefer not to’ has become perhaps one of the most famous and enigmatic phrases in English literature.
For Benjamin Schweitzer the story’s action is irrelevant. The basis of the libretto is the scene of the first performance of ‘Bartleby’s formula’. This central moment, this one phrase builds with repeated convergences, constant variations and alienating, layered textures, creating a compressed circle of time.