Events
Cracked Orlando
I
have written the libretto for an opera, called Cracked Orlando.
The
composer is Jonathan Dawe
Cracked Orlando is based on
Vivaldi’s adaptation of an epic 15th poem by Ariosto. The story is quite
psychological, about a man who goes crazy with unrequited love. We
started with the thinnest narrative thread in Italian, drawn from
Vivaldi’s original libretto. I added English fragments to complement
fractals in Jonathan’s music. I “grew” them according to the Fibonacci
sequence, which keeps adding the last two terms and is self-similar in
form, by preserving part/whole relations. I initiated 4 Fibonacci
“bushes,” beginning with one, two, three, and four words. For thematic
content I drew upon Jungian archetypes of number: one represents
wholeness; two, polarity/fight; three, change/dynamics; four,
resolution/manifestation. I treated the growing bushes like poetry, a
kind of Haiku, and then color coded the results and threaded the growing
English through the Italian narrative. After seven iterations, the
English overpowered the Italian to culminate in an 84 word aria for
Orlando.
Performance dates
are October 15, 16 and 17 in New York City.
The
venue is a Renaissance theater connected to Columbia University
http://www.italianacademy.columbia.edu/rentals_teatro.html
The opera will be accompanied by a Brooklyn based ballet, Company
XIV http://www.companyxiv.com/
The music will be a chamber group, called
SECOND INSTRUMETAL UNIT
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