Opera
In 2008, Dill conceived and directed a full-scale opera, “Divide Light,” based on the language of Emily Dickinson. The opera premiered in August 2008 at the Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA. The opera was commissioned by Montalvo Arts Center and was supported in part by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation Multi Arts Production Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. A film of the opera, “Divide Light,” premiered in New York City at the Anthology Film Archives in April 2009. The music for “Divide Light” was done in collaboration with composer Richard Marriott.
Dill and Marriott are currently collaborating on their second major project together, a new opera based on the life and writings of Machiavelli.
Read more about this topic: Lesley Dill
Famous quotes containing the word opera:
“The opera house sparkled with tiers
And tiers of eyes, like mine enlarged by belladonna,”
—James Merrill (b. 1926)
“If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves.... The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Brünnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Opera once was an important social instrument—especially in Italy. With Rossini and Verdi people were listening to opera together and having the same catharsis with the same story, the same moral dilemmas. They were holding hands in the darkness. That has gone. Now perhaps they are holding hands watching television.”
—Luciano Berio (b. 1925)