Black Lodge
OPERA PHILADELPHIA IN O22, PHILADELPHIA
DAVID T. LITTLE
ANNE WALDMAN
DAVID T. LITTLE
MICHAEL JOSEPH MCQUILKEN
BETH MORRISON PROJECTS
THURSTON MOORE
BETH MORRISON, JECCA BARRY, BRIAN FREELAND and ROBERT PHILLIP SMITH
JUDY & ALLEN FREEDMAN, KIKI & DAVID GINDLER, CHARLOTTE ISAACS, THOMAS H. PLATZ
TIMUR BEKBOSUNOV
TIMUR & JENNIFER HARRISON NEWMAN
TIMUR (Vocalist), MILO TALWANI (Keyboard), ANDREW LESSMAN (Drums/Vocals), MATTHEW SETZER (Guitar/Vocals) and HANNAH DEXTER (Bass)
EMILY CALL (Violin), MADELINE FALCONE (Violin), BETSY RETTIG (Cello), NADIA SIROTA (Viola [Audio]) and RITA ANDRADE (Viola [Film])
ADINA VERSON (spoken text), ANDRÉ DE QUADROS (Doctor), CHIP MORRISON (Doctor) and THOMAS H. PLATZ (Doctor)
DAVID T. LITTLE
ANNE WALDMAN
MICHAEL JOSEPH MCQUILKEN
Film Screening with Live Performance and Musicians
Trapped in a nightmarish Bardo, a place between death and rebirth, a tormented writer (Timur) faces down demons of his own making. Forced to confront his darkest moment in his life, he mines fractured and repressed memories for a way out. The woman (Jennifer Harrison Newman) 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. Inspired by the complicated mythology 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, and questions what it ultimately takes to face ourselves.
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.
"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!"
“Black Lodge is a bold new operatic film. It seamlessly blends poetry and music into a powerful cinematic experience.”
"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.”
"A knack for overturning musical conventions”
"A counter-cultural giant."
“One of the top advocates for American Poetry"
"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."
01 / 07
OPERA PHILADELPHIA IN O22, PHILADELPHIA