Magdalene is a chamber opera in thirteen movements: a wild meditation on transformation and desire scored by the collective voices of fourteen women. Set to Marie Howe’s Magdalene poems, the opera invites an audience into the interior world of Magdalene, a woman alive now who strives to heal the unyielding split between the sacred and the sexual. Encountering her life in flashes – wandering through a hotel, lighting birthday candles, taking pills, making love in the ocean – Magdalene finds transcendence in the mundane to finally become the subject of her own story.
Co-created by Danielle Birrittella and
Zoe Aja Moore
Music by Leila Adu, Ruby Kato Attwood, Danielle Birrittella, Christina Courtin (BM '05, violin), Gabrielle Herbst, Molly Joyce (BM '14, composition), Emma O'Halloran, Gemma Peacocke, Kamala Sankaram, Bergrun Snæbjörnsdóttir, Annika Socolofsky, Gyda Valtýsdóttir, and Sheena Wenger with additional music by Ellen Reid
Poetry by Marie Howe
Direction by Zoe Aja Moore
Music direction by Mila Henry and
Marc Lowenstein
Featuring Danielle Birrittella