James Joyce's Dirty Letters: subject of my new short Opera for Bloomsday,NOLA 6/14-6/16
“Darling, Please do not be offended (by what I wrote.)”
-is the full title. This will be performed for the Bloomsday celebration in New Orleans. Bloomsday is the annual celebration of James Joyce’s groundbreaking masterpiece, Ulysses. The festival is now being handled by the collaborator in two of my previous operas (‘Bang the Law’, ee me and pollock thee’) , Chris Lane.
I have had the idea for a long time and finally the opportunity came up to stage the piece. Libretto and music by yours truly. All the text however is by Mr. James Joyce. The lyric is totally unexpurgated. Immoral restoration theater type directness for our tightening times…except of course- of and for the common people.
The opera is also to remember the great victory over victorian censorship of the book.
The piece will be at the church at the Hotel Peter and Paul in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. There will be two performance on the 14th and two on the 16th of June.
Great artists have been assembled to work on it.
Zara Zemmels- Mezzo-Soprano
Nelson Gonzalez- Joyce
Tim Robertson- Guitar
Janna Saslaw- Flutes
David Gamble- projections and design
Joan Long- Lighting/ stage design/ performance consultant
Jonathan Freilich- composer/librettist
Chris Lane- producer and set builder.
Extremely important here is our gofundme campaign to raise the money for the production. We hope that if you support arts in New Orleans, or are a theater fan, or a literature fan, or an independent/ experimental/contemporary opera buff, or prefer that your ribald times aren’t impinged upon, or support diversity in music, or the livelihood and development of the arts in general, that you will contribute. Any amount helps greatly.
The link is here…