World Premiere of Blood&Breath by Dahlan Foah

Nov 22, 2024 | 0 comments

Last week (October 19, 2024) we held the World Premiere of the third in a series of seven Frequency Operas. The First is The Birth of Color: A Marriage of Darkness and Light; the second is SivaSati: A Marriage of Energy and Matter, Part One: Field of Desire. This one is Blood&Breath – Magdalen in Altamira.

We were invited to hold the World Premiere in the Vatican inside Italy.

King David, beloved of God, danced and sang before the Lord. We understand intimately how this way of praise, guidance and purification feels, and we are always in the process of experiencing the results.

Blood&Breath – Magdalen in Altamira’s World Premier was presented on October 19th, 2024 in the Church of Santa Maria Pietà church inside Vatican City. Attached at an angle to a corner of the church is a tiny room that is the original place of worship of Peter and the companions of Jesus of Nazareth that they created when they arrived in Rome.

For us, this little room is a stronger experience than the Colosseum or Roman Forum, maybe because the small human size of this place made for the people who had been with Jesus, knew him as a human being and were trying to understand what that meant, what was being asked of them? What was right? So they made this little place in the midst of the enormous Empire, the might of Rome that conquered the world, and dedicated it to love.

Honora:
My life has taught me that this is the only way. Somehow inside the enormous forces of violence and destruction, we have to find a way to dedicate ourselves to love.

So I wrote this story, and Dahlan has found a way to bring it into the world. Many people of wonderful talent have joined us, and I feel it is fair to say that all of them have a personal capacity for love that finds its way into the work.

The energies of all of these people have been heightened by being able to bring it to Vatican City. Whatever the tortured history of this place has been, there have always been people of true reverence and clarity moving toward the absolute center of the meaning of the Christ – love. Love for everyone, care for everyone, especially for those without power and money

So in coming to this place, we felt able to work out of the fullness and conviction of our hearts as an offering of devotion rather than only an entertainment. The venue brought focus to a work that emerged from the deepest personal spiritual experiences.

The principals include:

Honora Foà – Creator, Author, Librettist, Director
https://www.frequencyopera.org/honora-foa

Dahlan Foah – Executive Producer
https://www.frequencyopera.org/dahlan-foah

Lucas Richman – Composer and Conductor
https://www.frequencyopera.org/lucas-richman

Margot McLean – Original Paintings used for the projected environment
https://www.frequencyopera.org/margot-mclean

Cast:

Stefania Rocca – Mary Magdalene
https://www.frequencyopera.org/stefania-rocca

Amedeo Fago – Joseph of Arimathea
https://www.frequencyopera.org/amadeo-fago

Joelle Morris – Mezzo-Soprano
https://www.frequencyopera.org/joelle-morris

Isaac Bray – Baritone
https://www.frequencyopera.org/isaac-bray

Initially, Honora wrote the text for the narration and some of the lyrics and then spent three years working with Lucio Ivaldi, the composer of the first frequency opera, The Birth of Color, A Marriage of Darkness and Light. However, shortly after they began, Lucio’s wife was found to have a serioius illness, that despite intensive treatment progressed until she died in the spring of 2024, Lucio was simply unable to finish the score. Here is a short overview of the past six months.

USA – With time absolutely running out, in July 2024, Lucas Richman volunteered to begin an entirely new score that eventually led to more than 300 pages of music, a feat which, no joke, we’re thinking of submitting to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Within just a few weeks, Lucas had already written several arias – the Noli Me Tàngere (for Baritone) and Beloved I See (for Mezzo-Soprano) for which Honora wrote new lyrics.

So Honora and I went up to Bangor, Maine where Lucas and Debbie Richman live and worked with two fabulous soloists – Joelle Morris, Mezzo-Soprano and Isaac Bray,Baritone. The arias were so beautiful I had tears throughout the sessions.

This meant a new period of collaboration with Honora changing elements of the text, deleting and adding, writing new lyrics to play to Lucas’ strengths and interests, what he found most inspiring and compelling. And for Lucas to dive profoundly into the poetry and meaning of the text. In this, it was a true collaboration.

After three years of work preparing for production, working on a venue, putting our team together, negotiating contracts, etc. we finally arrived in Rome, Italy, where we had made arrangements to use a recording studio space for rehearsal.

Rome, Italy – We would work mornings – Honora, Lucas, Debbie Richman and I organizing rehearsals. I would then convey our needs to the team at the rehearsal studio, including drayage of percussion instruments, harp, music stands, lights, etc. and the preparation for a studio recording of the rehearsals over the last two days.

The first day Lucas worked with the vocal soloists. The next day we had the eight musicians from I Solisti dell’Orchestra di Roma rehearse. Sunday we had rehearsals most all day with the narrators.

Each evening Lucas would be working on the score – finishing various parts and mostly orchestrating. And with Debbie, incorporating the Italian libretto into the score so the narrators, singers and musicians (and mainly Lucas) would have all the information needed for proper entrances.

Debbie is Music Librarian for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra as well as for LeDor publishing. A more organized (and patient) person I could not imagine. In the midst of so many changes, modifications, restructuring every evening we would check our Google Docs . . . and voilà, everything was up to date.

The libretto of Honora’s poetry had been translated into Italian by Martino Nicoletti(https://www.frequencyopera.org/martino-nicoletti).

(above) Amedeo Fago, who played the role of Joseph of Arimathea, trying on his costume.

Simultaneously, we would all, together or separately, go back to the church to take more measurements; check lighting; figure logistics; and often I would need to work out the politics of the Vatican.

The 15th and 16h of October we had a full run through each day, which we recorded.

Vatican City within Rome, Italy.

Meanwhile at the Vatican, during the afternoon, evening and much of the night we had load-in of the equipment, moving of equipment, set-up of projectors, scrim, etc. At one point the supplier for the tulle fabric refused, with 10 days to showtime, to fabricate the material, after having worked with them for several months! So we ordered from a small shop in Naples – and it arrived perfect and ahead of schedule!

One of the many difficulties was that the Vatican wanted to hold Mass every morning at 8:00 AM so each evening we had to dismantle everything, clear out all the chairs for the audience and put the pews back. Then each morning after Mass, we had to clear out the pews and put the chairs, equipment and instruments back in.

Honora and Lucas spent much time trying to work a reasonable solution for the placement of the stage and eight-person orchestra in the church. Honora has designed all the frequency operas to be ‘in the round – ’in such a way that the audience is inside the performance rather than looking at, from outside. The shortened rehearsal time due to sudden changes made by the Vatican meant this just could not happen in the amount of time left.

For the projections we had purchased two massive super-wide angle lenses – each one projected 180°, so we had full 360° images throughout much of the opera.

October 18, 2024 was our dress rehearsal, with a full house of invited guests. It went beautifully, except that the projected images were not as impactful as we had desired. So – another all-nighter by our valiant Valentina Vidali (projection designer) and Salvatore Passaro and Mahnaz Esmaeli, our director of tech. The lighting cues during the dress rehearsal were not correct, so Honora sat with Salvatore and Mahnaz for almost two hours the night of the World Premiere and wrote out cues for the entire show!

The house was, once again, packed. The show was magnificent. Honora’s beautiful poetry; Lucas’ beautiful music and the love of literally a couple of hundred people permeated the air.

(More photos and reviews below).