Creative Team

Composer

DAVID T. LITTLE

Libretto

ANNE WALDMAN

Story, Screenplay, and Film/Stage direction

MICHAEL JOSEPH MCQUILKEN

Executive Producer

BETH MORRISON PROJECTS

Executive Producer

THURSTON MOORE

Producers

BETH MORRISON, JECCA BARRY, BRIAN FREELAND and ROBERT PHILLIP SMITH

Additional Producers

JUDY & ALLEN FREEDMAN, KIKI & DAVID GINDLER, CHARLOTTE ISAACS, THOMAS H. PLATZ

Production Consultant

TIMUR BEKBOSUNOV

Starring

TIMUR & JENNIFER HARRISON NEWMAN

Featuring

TIMUR AND THE DIME MUSEUM

TIMUR (Vocalist), MILO TALWANI (Keyboard), ANDREW LESSMAN (Drums/Vocals), MATTHEW SETZER (Guitar/Vocals) and HANNAH DEXTER (Bass)

ISAURA STRING QUARTET (Film)

EMILY CALL (Violin), MADELINE FALCONE (Violin), BETSY RETTIG (Cello), NADIA SIROTA (Viola [Audio]) and RITA ANDRADE (Viola [Film])

OPERA PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA (Live)

ADINA VERSON (spoken text), ANDRÉ DE QUADROS (Doctor), CHIP MORRISON (Doctor) and THOMAS H. PLATZ (Doctor)

DAVID T. LITTLE

ANNE WALDMAN

MICHAEL JOSEPH MCQUILKEN

About

“What does it take to face ourselves? Enter the darkness in search of something beautiful, transcendent. But be very careful what you need to know…

Drawing on the complicated mythologies of the surrealist writer William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch), Black Lodge uses dance, industrial rock, classical string quartet, and opera to take viewers through a Lynchian psychological escape room.

Set in a nightmarish Bardo, a place between death and rebirth, a tormented writer faces down demons of his own making. Forced to confront the darkest moment in his life, he mines fractured and repressed memories for a way out. A woman is at the center of all the writer’s afterlife encounters. She is the subject of his life’s greatest regret, and she materializes everywhere in this Otherworld. The writer cannot detach any thoughts of his life from her.

Part film screening and part industrial rock opera concert, this world premiere event features glam opera band Timur & the Dime Museum alongside musicians from the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra.”

Support

Opera commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Allen R. and Judy Brick Freedman Venture Fund for Opera.

Film commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects, Opera Philadelphia, the Allen R. and Judy Brick Freedman Venture Fund for Opera, David & Kiki Gindler, Charlotte Isaacs, and Thomas H. Platz with additional support provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation.

Developed by Beth Morrison Projects, California Institute for the Arts, HERE Arts Center, and REDCAT. Additional production support provided by David & Kiki Gindler, Charlotte Isaacs, and Thomas H. Platz. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Press

"This is opera ripping through the fabric of future vision psychosis where the integrity of classic form clasps the hands of radical possibilities, David T. Little takes no prisoners here, in confluence with poet angel head Anne Waldman’s libretto of nature, irreality, and spirit consciousness, divining deliverance from life’s spectacle of chaos and love. You’re about to have your mind scorched, my friends!"

Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth

“Black Lodge is a bold new operatic film. It seamlessly blends poetry and music into a powerful cinematic experience.”

Composer Philip Glass

“A Twin Peaks-inspired musical theater piece”

LA Times

"One of the most imaginative young composers on the music-theatre scene…not a post-classical composer but a classical composer with a surprisingly broad range.”

The New Yorker on David T. Little

"A knack for overturning musical conventions”

The New York Times on David T. Little

"A counter-cultural giant."

Publisher's Weekly on Anne Waldman

“One of the top advocates for American Poetry"

The Huffington Post on Anne Waldman

"The premiere of a new work by the composer David T. Little is always worth exploring, and his operas — “Dog Days,” “JFK” — reveal him to be an especially powerful composer for the voice."