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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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choosing W FOURCY Radio.
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Welcod evening, everybody, and welcome to Triversity Talk. My official
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co host tonight, of course, is my dog Nugget. He
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either wants a walk or something to eat. He only
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comes to me when he wants something, Like people in
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the world. I am so happy to have everybody with
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me on this Wednesday night, getting ready for the whole
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holiday season. So much to do, and as you know,
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I'm broadcasting from New York City, but Traversity Our LGBTQS
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center is in Milford, Pennsylvania, Diversity the Pride Center.
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We have various open hours. Please make sure.
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You check our site online, both our Facebook site and
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our website to find out when our open hours are.
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We're always happy to have you drop in and again
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we're an amazing resource service.
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Or if you just want to have a little.
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Talk or just get out of the cold, please come
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in and see us. Thank you all so much. So
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there's been a lot of talk about trans gender bills
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being passed, right, and it's something that we've been talking
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about for the last year and a half, to say
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the least.
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And now as we move.
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Forward into January, there are a lot of things on
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the table, I'll just put it that way, and none
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of us know where these things are going to be going.
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So I was very interested when I heard about tonight's
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guest because what this person is doing as a creative
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composer is shining a light on transgender Our guest Tonight
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is from New York and is a composer described as
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one of the most consistently interesting amongst the present generation
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of United States theater composers. Okay, so, Grammy Award winner
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has done so many interesting operas which I am going
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to uh.
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Wait with baby breath to have him tell us about.
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I'm very excited about that.
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So please, without further ado, please welcome to bias picker.
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Thank you, and there you are.
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We're always happy when the introduction works and the guest appears.
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And nothing happens with the Wi Fi.
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Thank you so much, first of all for taking time
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out of your You're incredibly busy.
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Now, yes that's true, Okay, I do, I do. I
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have learned how to take time for myself and and
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this is time time for myself and it's time for
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to share my experience.
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So well, I want to thank you.
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I want to thank you for that because you just
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hit on something. You're sharing your experience, and when you
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do share your experience, it shares that with people that
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are out there, people that will learn something. Sometimes the
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sharing will make people feel better about themselves. But certainly
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we like to think people leave this show knowing a
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little more, experiencing a little more. So I'm going to
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start with our present. How did you get known for
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casting and creating work around transgender.
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Well, it started when I was asked to if I
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wanted to write an opera commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of
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the Stonewall Rebellion, and I started researching who all was
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in you know, throwing bottles and who who all really
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was responsible for rebelling and Uh, and I started learning
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about trans people in a way that I had not
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understood before. Uh, there's there's significance to the to the
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what was then called the gay rights movement, and and
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and their participation in every aspect of society. I I
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I I thought for an opera that which I did,
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I didn't do it. I didn't write an opera about
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Snowmall in the end because I decided to do what
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I did instead. I preferred that the story. But I
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thought any opera that ah that that featured march A P.
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Johnson and I could have trans singers in it. But
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I didn't know of any trans opera singers. And a
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friend of mine said, oh, yes, there are there are
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some you should You should look up Lucia Lucas. And
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Lucia Lucas was was very happy to hear from me
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when I got in touch with her and said, I,
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I'd love to hear you sing. And she she lives
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in Germany now and she included New York and auditioned
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for us. And I am me at the time, was
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running the Tulsa Opera as well as doing my own thing,
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and I was casting Don Giovanni. So I immediately cast
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her as Don Giovanni in our production of Don Giovanni
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in Tulsa Opera, and and we became friends. And I
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I had this idea, not about Stonewall, but a different
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idea that was about about the life of Lily Elba,
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which was made famous to the general public by a
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film called The Danish Girl. And she was a painter.
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Both she and her wife were painters.
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Famous painters, Yeah, exactly from from Copenhagen and they and this,
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this story really gripped me when I first encountered it.
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And so going back to Lily Elba's own memoirs, my
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libretti who are left Stoleman my also my partner in
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life and my husband, my partner of forty five years,
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I would say.
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Wow, congratulations, that's a long time.
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Yes, I wrote the wrote the libretto for this and
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with them, well, the first thing I did was ask Lucia,
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would you would you want an opera? Would you want
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to play Louly Elva in an opera? And and she
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said yes, without hesitating, that's that's my story. And so
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she became our dramatrig which was meant that she advised
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us on all aspects of how to approach the subject
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and both historically and and contemporarily, and the differences between
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how between language, how we use language today and how
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we used how there was no language one hundred years ago,
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when Lily Elba was having one of the first gender
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affirmation surgeries.
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That ever, which were disastrous in those days.
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Was disastrous and killed her in the end. So yeah, so,
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But I became interested in because I would have liked
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to commemorate Stonewall, but I didn't see I didn't see
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it as an operatic subject. But it made me get
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I started getting very interested in the hero the heroines
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of Stonewall and their descendants, of which I think of
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Luccia as one of because she's an advocate for people
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of trans experience and especially in the opera world, probably
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the most famous opera singer in the world today of
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trans experience, although there are there are now quite a.
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Few, there have been quite a few that have come along.
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But it's funny when we talk about transgender people will
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think of Stonewall.
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Okay, they'll think of Marsha P. Johnson.
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They won't necessarily think of opera because personally, I feel
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there were so many people that switched roles in the opera.
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They just always did. You know, it was totally accepted,
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So maybe it wasn't so unusual if you understand what
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I'm saying. You know now the word transgender, right, Oh,
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there's someone who's transgend gender playing.
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A role in an opera, so they would call that out.
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Now, I'm curious with the history of opera, which you
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are the expert, not I, in the history of opera,
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how did transgender play out?
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Well, there were there were, There were lots of switchings
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of roles. If if you take the composer in in
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in A for instance, is sung by a mezzo soprano
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woman traditionally, but but she's playing a man as the composer.
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And uh. And we find the same thing in mostart
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marriage of figure out and and through throughout the history
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of opera. So the gender gender fluidity has has existed
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throughout the four hundred years history, but never specifically, not
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never as specifically as as it did when we wrote
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To the Elbow, where we had an actual transgender artist
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playing the role of a transgender person who was actually
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an historical figure that that that was something that we're
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very proud of having done for the first time.
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Absolutely, and I'm I'm sure is how much did the
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film The Danish Girl? How much was the opera based
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on the Danish Girl?
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It was, It wasn't based on the Danish Girl at all.
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Yeah, there were not even any kinds of connections to
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because I remember that film quite well.
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There were there are coincidences because the Danish Girl, Uh,
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it is based on a book which was which took
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took from the original sources some to some of the
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same original sources that we grew out, grew grew upon
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for our narrative, specifically Man and Too Women by Lily Elbow,
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which is her story. And but there was not there
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is nothing from the film. We took nothing from the
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film or the book for the for the movie. For
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the opera, we were they were drawing on the same
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original sources of information that we were.
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That you did to create a piece like that, how
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long did it take you?
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Well, the pandemic intervene, so normally it would take two
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or two and a half for three years, but with
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the pandemic, uh, we were. We postponed the premiere, but absolutely,
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Usually it's usually one opera usually is two to three years, yeah,
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four or five in the planning from begining inception two
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to the premiere.
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Wow, it really is a labor of love. Lily Albe
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was very well received when it opened up at the
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Theater Saint Golan and Saint.
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Gallen in Switzerland, Eastern Switzerland a year ago, and it
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was very, very very well received by the German speaking press.
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Well won an award from Hope magazine, which is one
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of the leading opera magazines in Germany, as best World
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Premiere of twenty twenty three.
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Well, that's really quite an honor. I'm thinking about an
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opera like this now in the political landscape that is
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ahead of us, which is extremely uncertain, and I'm I
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was going to say, I'm not quite sure trans friendly.
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I'm not sure it's trans friendly at all. Where are
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you planning on showing the opera here?
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Well, we will have an American premiere, Yes, a major
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American premiere of the opera in twenty twenty six, and
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that is going to be announced in May.
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To follow you on social media, your website.
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Then I can't say where, because it's up to the
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opera company to announce the premiere and not the composer, right,
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that will be premiered and people can see it from
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all over. In fact, if there's a film of the opera,
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that's that's easily easy to access on my YouTube channel
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of the whole of the whole production that was premiered
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in Saint Helen.
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And and actually I did access it on your YouTube channel.
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But seeing opera live, of course, there's there's nothing like it.
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No, it's there's a magic you cannot translate.
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Into exactly exactly because computers are such a flat medium.
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So your story, how did you become a composer?
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I tend to think I was born as a composer.
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I don't. I don't remember the time before I was.
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I started very well because I started when I was eight, so,
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but the the cultural climate was different when I was
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eight and network television CBS television showed young people's concerts
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from the New York Philharmonic.
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I do you remember the young people's concerts?
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And they were taped for broadcast every Saturday. And there
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were there were operas on network television, so I I
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was exposed to a contemporary opera, very young them all
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in the night visitors. When I was a child, it
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was on every Christmas, and and so there were things
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like things like that, being taken to a learn My
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mother took me to a Learner burn Sun Young People's concert.
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I remember those right.
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We attended Andre Watson's historic debut and in Philharmonic Hall.
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And there are all these influences around me. That music
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was just it was just part of our household in
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our life and music, art and literature, and it was
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for me there was no real choice, right.
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You came from a house where not only were you
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exposed to it, but I wanted to ask you about
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your parents, which one of them or both are musically
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oriented or musically gifted.
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Well, my mother was a very accomplished painter and shoe designer,
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and she also played the piano. She learned the piano
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as a child. They had a piano and their home,
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and so she was mainly exposing me to classical music
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when I.
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Was very very very small, at a young age.
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But my father listened to the same music. So there
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was there was the exposure from both. And he exposed
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me to great art and took me to the to
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the great museums of the world, and so both of them,
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and also he was he was uh, literally literarily inclined.
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So I was exposed to do great books by him.
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That My mother was the one who who would was
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reading composer biographies when I was a small child and
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for some reason became obsessed with them.
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No, I would have you know, because you are a kid.
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Kids do tend to veeer off of things. But from
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what I'm getting from you, you were in credit focused,
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surrounded by it and absolutely loved it with a passion
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from very young. Now as you got into your ten years,
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I always like asking people this, where did you end
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up going to school?
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I went to public school from from kindergarten through twelfth
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grade in Bedford, New York. But at the age of ten,
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I started attending the Juilliard Preparatory Division. On okay, yeah,
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Saturday after I would spend the day in the city
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on Saturday, take the train in hundred twenty fifth Street
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and the Crosstown bus and have my theory, my piano lesson,
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my year training lessons, and go home practice.
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So you are absolutely molded for the career that you have.
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Well. Yes, without my parents realizing that, they were very
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surprised when I told them I planned to pursue a
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career as a composer. They weren't. They weren't. They just
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thought that was a normal exposure to expose your children
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to and then they would get a normal job. But
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they would have they would live a life of culture.
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Right, But you didn't want to play suborb.
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You never expected me to become a composer. Wow, my sisters.
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My sister's an accomplished artists. I don't think they expected her.
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People to don't necessarily turn out the way their parents
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are expecting them to.
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Know that that's true.
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But the amount of culture that you grew up with
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is you know, really impressive. Can say, were you raised
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in New York? You were in Bedford? You said you
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went to school. Is that where you grew up For
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the most.
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Part, I grew up in Westchester?
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Yeah, Westchester's I mean, my cousins grew up in Westchester.
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They're great people, they're well educated, but you know, they
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don't have your background. So I love that your parents
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put so much into you. And even though you surprise
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them in the in the end, I kudos to them,
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you know, for knowing the value of raising a child
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and that kind of arts background. For some reason, I
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think nowadays is maybe more challenging because there's more.
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When you were growing.
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Up, there wasn't the internet, right, I don't know if
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there was Xbox.
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I don't play any of that.
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But the TV said.
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Just the TV set or you didn't. Yeah, you watched
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TV radio. Get TV radio.
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Right, listen to w q x R. And we had
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a guide program guide, so I could plan what I
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was going to listen to.
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You would plan what you listened to. Now that is
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definitely a focused kid. Well, so when you where did
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you graduate away from university?
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Where did you go?
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I went? I went to the first I went to
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the Manhattan School of Music for my undergraduate degree. Then
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I went to the Juilliard School for my Masters of Music,
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and then I went to Princeton for a Master's of
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Fine Arts. Right then, I was enough. I felt like
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I was. It was enough degrees and oh.
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My gosh, it's a ton of degrees and an incredible pedigree.
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So I'm curious because I have had various friends involved
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in opera. My friend Joe Bishetta ran the Fresno Opera Company.
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Often the opera companies get in trouble financially.
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Why is that?
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Is there not enough people that attend opera or it's
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the cost to produce.
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So many people that perform in opera. I wonder both.
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It's extremely expensive to produce and and the audience is shrinking.
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The audience is shrinking.
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The audience the audience audiences today have in their pockets.
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They have they can have entertainment from of any kind,
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from anywhere in the world. Not three dimensional, as you
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pointed out, but they can what they can stream. We couldn't.
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There was no such thing as streaming until until all
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of this started in the last thirty years. This has changed.
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This has changed people's behavior from staying into going out.
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For instance, just a simple choice, can I can I
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do I really want to go out to the opera house?
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Or when I can, when I can watch something the similar,
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same thing or similar on my on my fabulous you know.
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That screen TV.
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But I'm sure you'll agree with me we're talking about
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those are like two totally different entities. It's not even
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in the same reality.
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Dimensions versus two the experience. You can't experience theater or
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in it two dimensional, really really experience it.
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No, you absolutely can't. Did you find that when you
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work in Europe.
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As opposed to hear that the operas are more well
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attended in Europe.
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I would say it's I would say that it's much
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more baked into the culture and has been for a
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longer a number of years, than it has into the
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American culture.
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Right.
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Also, it's supported by the state, So there's a tremendous,
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tremendous difference in the amount of resources that go into
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supporting opera by the state, and compared to our country,
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where we don't have it's very state support funding for
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the art. It's not even worth mentioning.
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It's so small, right, right, it makes me wonder. To me,
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like the opera live is just absolutely spectacular. There's nothing
352
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like it. There's no experience like it.
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And I worry, you know, this next generation coming up
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if they're.
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Exposed to it.
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And again, it's great for people that can't get to
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the opera. They can turn on YouTube and see your opera.
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But it is so vastly, vastly different than the thrill
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of the real experience. And it's magic when you see
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it in the theater. It's magic when you see it
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in a very very old theater. Right, It's just not
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the same when you stream it or watch it.
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On TV.
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I can only hope that the kids that are coming
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up that are oriented towards you and maybe have parents
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that are like yours that put such an emphasis. Your
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parents put an emphasis on their normalcy of that kind
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of culture. It was just normal, right, That was how
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you were growing up, and you were exposed to all
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of that.
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I thought I thought it was normal, but it was
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different from most of my friends.
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Yeah, of course a few of them.
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A few of them had grew up like the not
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actually most of them didn't. It was very important to
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my parents to take us to Italy when we were
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young and see and see.
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All the historical monuments and why they're there.
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Thought in person now, those things make a deep impression
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on the twelve years the Pieta.
381
00:27:01.640 --> 00:27:06.720
Yeah, yeah, you definitely end up taking that with you. Well, okay,
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00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:11.000
we have two clips that I chose her tonight that
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I thought you sent them to me, but I probably
384
00:27:14.119 --> 00:27:15.400
got them off of your.
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Site, which is very comprehensive.
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And if our producer can play those clips now, we'd
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like to watch.
388
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Thank you, Lily Elbo.
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Yes, Lily Elba underwent gender affirmation surgery in nineteen thirty
390
00:27:31.160 --> 00:27:34.359
at a time when nobody had done that before. Lily
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00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:39.680
Elba was an artist before, named Einar Wegener, and this
392
00:27:39.839 --> 00:27:42.720
is a painting by her from nineteen oh seven of
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the mountains at Versailles.
394
00:27:47.279 --> 00:27:50.960
I'm so excited about our offer Lily Alba, which tells
395
00:27:51.400 --> 00:27:56.000
Lily's story of transition. It's a beautiful story of Lily
396
00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:59.759
and her wife discovering who they are as artists and people.
397
00:28:00.599 --> 00:28:04.880
It's special to me because I've had so many of
398
00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:06.680
those same feelings, and there's so many.
399
00:28:06.559 --> 00:28:10.400
Parallels in the last Journey. In my journey.
400
00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:18.279
This opera is my most transcendental work musically, it is different.
401
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:19.640
From anything I've written.
402
00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:23.799
It is about the eternity of the earth, the eternal
403
00:28:23.839 --> 00:29:04.000
beauty of the earth, about rebirth and the continuation of life.
404
00:28:45.720 --> 00:28:53.359
Of the world.
405
00:29:36.759 --> 00:29:37.799
Thank you so much.
406
00:29:38.680 --> 00:29:44.400
So, of course I have questions, what were the biggest
407
00:29:44.519 --> 00:29:49.359
challenges in creating Lily Elba from its conception to the
408
00:29:49.480 --> 00:29:50.720
actual production on.
409
00:29:50.799 --> 00:29:56.079
Stage surviving.
410
00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:01.839
That's a good, honest answer, Please share.
411
00:30:03.079 --> 00:30:07.519
Well, it's writing an opera is a lot of work.
412
00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:09.799
Yes, there are.
413
00:30:11.279 --> 00:30:17.799
Thousands and thousands of notes and words and an awful
414
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:20.039
lot of things going on at the same time. So
415
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:29.480
to say what was the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge
416
00:30:29.519 --> 00:30:37.839
was creating a large form that worked, that would be
417
00:30:37.960 --> 00:30:48.920
able to contain and explain Lilie Elba in a truthful,
418
00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:00.200
too truthful and accurate and an empathic way. And I
419
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:04.240
think I think we achieved that, but it did take
420
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:05.960
it took a few years to do.
421
00:31:07.880 --> 00:31:14.440
I would imagine, I think using the word empathic, maybe
422
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:16.640
that's what I was getting out when I was asking
423
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:18.880
about the challenges of it.
424
00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:20.839
I mean the subject matter.
425
00:31:21.880 --> 00:31:26.880
And again, I don't know if if opera is like
426
00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:32.039
producing other forms of theater, but it always has to
427
00:31:32.119 --> 00:31:36.000
run through the creator's head. How is this going to
428
00:31:36.039 --> 00:31:38.960
be received? How do I create something that's going to
429
00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:43.039
be well received? How do I get my message received?
430
00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:44.880
What was that like for you?
431
00:31:47.400 --> 00:31:53.160
Well? I wanted to place the first performance of this
432
00:31:53.240 --> 00:32:04.799
opera in the most secure and safe environment possible, so
433
00:32:04.920 --> 00:32:08.400
I talked to many opera houses. I wanted it also
434
00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:12.079
to premiere in Europe because they were literally and Getta
435
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:21.880
were Europeans, and I felt it was important. So I
436
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:25.640
talked to many opera houses about how to present it.
437
00:32:25.720 --> 00:32:32.039
But it was it was a theater in Saint Gallen
438
00:32:32.839 --> 00:32:36.759
and Young Henry Bogan, who's the general director of that
439
00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:42.519
theater and in charge of all opera that that really understood,
440
00:32:43.039 --> 00:32:48.720
really got got the subject. The director that that we
441
00:32:48.759 --> 00:32:53.359
worked with, Christian Lata, they really understood what the kinds
442
00:32:53.400 --> 00:33:01.160
of things we were working with. They designed a safe
443
00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:06.000
space for a lot of people to work in on
444
00:33:06.039 --> 00:33:18.359
some very very difficult, uh challenging material. And the cast
445
00:33:18.519 --> 00:33:20.519
just from the from the point of view of casting,
446
00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:30.519
the cast was it was there were two trans three
447
00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:34.039
besides the g Lucas, there were two other trans people
448
00:33:34.039 --> 00:33:39.480
in the cast and one of the assistant directors was trans.
449
00:33:40.559 --> 00:33:44.319
A lot of people behind the scenes, uh. But it
450
00:33:44.440 --> 00:33:50.359
was also it was a very inclusive cast and including
451
00:33:50.400 --> 00:33:57.519
including all of all of the letters of the.
452
00:33:55.880 --> 00:33:59.160
Spectrum as we say yes, yes.
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00:33:59.039 --> 00:34:06.240
Actually and and that was very magical and consoling to
454
00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:09.719
work in that environment. It was one It was really
455
00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:14.159
one of them. I've worked in some great opera houses,
456
00:34:14.239 --> 00:34:18.679
including the met which is unsurpassable, but I mean it
457
00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:25.119
was one of the one of the great artistic, personal
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00:34:25.920 --> 00:34:29.840
professional experiences of my life because it was such a
459
00:34:31.480 --> 00:34:34.519
because the the the opera house, the people that Grand
460
00:34:34.639 --> 00:34:37.119
Opera House understood what we were going for.
461
00:34:37.519 --> 00:34:42.639
Yeah, you're probably the first person that was doing that
462
00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:43.760
kind of an opera.
463
00:34:44.440 --> 00:34:48.719
Well, others have done small, smaller scale operas based on
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00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:52.000
the trans characters, but this was this was a grand
465
00:34:52.039 --> 00:35:00.679
opera and a full evening. Uh So, yeah, that's that's true.
466
00:35:01.119 --> 00:35:05.440
What what was interesting was that the the audiences that
467
00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:08.559
turned out and what I was told was a very
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00:35:08.599 --> 00:35:19.159
conservative area of Switzerland easterns which borders Austria and Germany.
469
00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:23.880
Uh but they people came back several times and there
470
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:26.440
were sold out houses, not all of them, but they
471
00:35:26.440 --> 00:35:30.320
were the ones that weren't were sold well. And it
472
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:35.599
was it was an experience for people to learn that
473
00:35:37.639 --> 00:35:47.559
as I as I I like to say that with
474
00:35:47.719 --> 00:35:54.880
apologies to Gandhi, all men are not brothers, but all
475
00:35:55.960 --> 00:35:59.400
we are all siblings. Yeah, And I thought that was
476
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:03.480
the message that the people who came to see that
477
00:36:03.519 --> 00:36:07.159
the opera in the theater took away from the experience
478
00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:12.480
that these are human beings with human problems like mine.
479
00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:18.920
Right, which brings me to the fact that I believe.
480
00:36:18.599 --> 00:36:25.320
That our opera, theater or film books are the bridge
481
00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:31.880
that can open up minds and change minds. And you know,
482
00:36:31.960 --> 00:36:34.960
right now, to me, you have such an important piece.
483
00:36:36.079 --> 00:36:37.320
It hasn't been done here.
484
00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:42.800
I'm excited for when you bring this to the United States,
485
00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:48.039
and again because of my awareness of where things are
486
00:36:48.079 --> 00:36:51.079
at politically now and the kinds of bills.
487
00:36:50.639 --> 00:36:52.960
That are being proposed out there.
488
00:36:53.159 --> 00:36:58.000
And the kind of backlash and the way things have gone,
489
00:36:58.159 --> 00:37:02.159
and the fact that very basics, you know, there's talk
490
00:37:02.679 --> 00:37:06.400
about taking people's hormones away from them. I mean, things
491
00:37:06.400 --> 00:37:11.000
that are absolutely blasphemous are now on the table right
492
00:37:11.599 --> 00:37:14.119
Someone like you creates such an incredible This is so
493
00:37:14.239 --> 00:37:18.000
incredibly beautiful and it's very obvious even from the tiny
494
00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:21.920
snippet that you showed to our audience tonight, you've not
495
00:37:21.960 --> 00:37:26.760
only created a beautiful piece, you created a piece of equality.
496
00:37:26.800 --> 00:37:28.920
And you did create a safe space.
497
00:37:29.719 --> 00:37:32.599
And I think for me, the message I want to
498
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:37.239
get out there is that safe space needs to be
499
00:37:37.719 --> 00:37:42.639
communicated to people everywhere that are threatened by other people's equality.
500
00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:46.280
There's room for all of us. And you know, Pardon
501
00:37:46.400 --> 00:37:47.840
is saying we need to live and let.
502
00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:53.599
Live well that is also that's also a good message
503
00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:03.360
of this, and I think, yeah, I agree, it's a
504
00:38:03.599 --> 00:38:07.800
it's a this is a different time to present to
505
00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:12.400
present Lilli Elba in America, in this America that we
506
00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:16.639
are facing now, America would have been if we had
507
00:38:16.639 --> 00:38:22.320
been facing a different kind of America that we've some
508
00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:24.719
of us thought we were going to or hoped we
509
00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:31.719
would be. So I don't know what to expect from
510
00:38:31.800 --> 00:38:39.480
the I think the public will still be hospitable and
511
00:38:39.480 --> 00:38:42.760
and interested and agreeable, but I don't know whether they'll
512
00:38:43.519 --> 00:38:48.760
I think we live in frightening times, and I I
513
00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:57.559
don't know. I I don't know how kind of whether
514
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:00.440
this will be. You know, it really wasn't It was
515
00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:03.880
somewhat controversial to premiere this in Switzerland.
516
00:39:04.039 --> 00:39:08.199
Especially the area that you that you did it in absolutely.
517
00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:13.559
Not not not really not really controversial, And to do
518
00:39:13.599 --> 00:39:17.280
it in America in a big way. I don't know
519
00:39:17.320 --> 00:39:21.199
whether it will be controversial or not. I Lily is
520
00:39:21.239 --> 00:39:24.679
such a she's such a human character, and all the
521
00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:28.840
characters in the in the show are are very human.
522
00:39:29.039 --> 00:39:33.159
So who knew anything about it and what it was
523
00:39:33.239 --> 00:39:37.039
about would see that it's it's a it's a human
524
00:39:37.400 --> 00:39:45.440
human story, human drama about all the things that take
525
00:39:45.480 --> 00:39:49.119
place in all the classic operas, love and loss and
526
00:39:49.280 --> 00:39:56.280
right and pain, change and pain. So but I don't.
527
00:39:56.360 --> 00:39:59.800
I don't know. I haven't given frankly a lot of
528
00:39:59.800 --> 00:40:03.679
though talk to what's going to be in two years
529
00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:06.119
when we premiered this, it's actually a year and a half.
530
00:40:07.239 --> 00:40:14.000
I don't. I can't. My crystal Ball is out of
531
00:40:14.280 --> 00:40:16.280
UH had a commission.
532
00:40:18.960 --> 00:40:21.119
It's in the draw with my Ouiji board.
533
00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:26.159
I will say, even though you drew from history, you
534
00:40:26.199 --> 00:40:29.880
didn't draw from the film The Danish Girl. I will say,
535
00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:34.480
knowing what I know about people that having that film
536
00:40:34.599 --> 00:40:38.079
The Danish Girl, that had been out and so many
537
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:41.519
people saw it and so many people loved it, I
538
00:40:41.559 --> 00:40:47.159
think that as a base, right, and it gave information.
539
00:40:47.519 --> 00:40:50.719
I think it's very good that that existed as a base.
540
00:40:53.719 --> 00:40:55.960
Well, it's a frame of reference for people who.
541
00:40:56.440 --> 00:41:00.760
I think who happened to see it, right, and I think.
542
00:41:01.559 --> 00:41:05.320
The numbers of people that saw it, and probably many
543
00:41:05.320 --> 00:41:07.440
more people saw that, then we'll be able to go
544
00:41:07.480 --> 00:41:12.079
to the opera. Right. But once people have that knowledge,
545
00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:15.639
I think that will all work in your favor when
546
00:41:15.719 --> 00:41:16.599
you launch it here.
547
00:41:16.920 --> 00:41:20.480
And I for one count, if.
548
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:24.199
You're counting, I would think by the end of time,
549
00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:27.280
more people who have seen the opera than the film.
550
00:41:27.719 --> 00:41:31.159
Yeah, that is probably true.
551
00:41:31.400 --> 00:41:33.559
So I would like to think.
552
00:41:34.599 --> 00:41:39.440
And so, and I wanted to ask you about Awakenings,
553
00:41:39.480 --> 00:41:42.360
the story of doctor Oliver Sacks, if you could talk
554
00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:43.920
a little bit about that opera.
555
00:41:46.400 --> 00:41:50.639
Yes. Awakenings is based on a book that was written
556
00:41:50.679 --> 00:41:55.239
by Oliver Sacks in the nineteen seventies, which W. H.
557
00:41:55.360 --> 00:42:00.280
Auden called a masterpiece. It was about cases that he
558
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:04.800
encountered as a resident neurologist in the Bronx when he
559
00:42:04.920 --> 00:42:08.800
was in the nineteen sixties, when he was a young
560
00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:13.840
young man fresh out of medical school, who had been
561
00:42:14.679 --> 00:42:19.519
the victims of a sleeping sickness that attacked them in
562
00:42:19.559 --> 00:42:23.000
the nineteen twenties and had been asleep for thirty and
563
00:42:23.119 --> 00:42:29.519
forty years, and his experiments to which succeeded in waking
564
00:42:29.639 --> 00:42:35.079
them up as if they were Rip van Winkle or
565
00:42:35.559 --> 00:42:40.000
Rip van Winkle. It's kind of the story of Rippin
566
00:42:40.280 --> 00:42:46.039
van Winkle meets sleeping Beauty. These people that were indoors
567
00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:48.519
for their whole lives because they had to be taken
568
00:42:48.559 --> 00:42:52.039
care of so their skin didn't age the way other
569
00:42:52.039 --> 00:42:58.079
people's skin ages were exposed to the outdoors. And Oliver
570
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:03.159
Sacks wrote this book in the seventies and was made
571
00:43:03.199 --> 00:43:09.760
into a film in nineteen ninety called Awakenings, starring Yeah,
572
00:43:10.639 --> 00:43:16.679
Robert de Niro and Robin Williams as Oliver Sacks, with
573
00:43:16.760 --> 00:43:23.599
a different name for the movie, and it was it
574
00:43:23.639 --> 00:43:28.039
was a great film. We based our opera on the
575
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:39.679
book Awakenings and the My interest in the subject kind
576
00:43:39.679 --> 00:43:43.519
of grew out of a long, long friendship that I
577
00:43:43.559 --> 00:43:45.760
had with doctor Sachs.
578
00:43:47.039 --> 00:43:48.360
That was going to be my question.
579
00:43:49.239 --> 00:43:52.800
This is a very unusual subject matter to begin with,
580
00:43:53.039 --> 00:43:56.159
and then doing an opera about it, So you had
581
00:43:56.159 --> 00:43:57.320
a personal connection.
582
00:43:57.920 --> 00:44:02.239
I had a personal connection, and also I am neurodivergent myself.
583
00:44:03.320 --> 00:44:08.280
I've had Turette syndrome since the age of five or six,
584
00:44:09.039 --> 00:44:14.280
and so a lot of challenges came with that, and
585
00:44:15.360 --> 00:44:22.559
I saw an opportunity in Awakenings to address some of
586
00:44:22.599 --> 00:44:29.519
my own issues and to also reveal an Oliver Sacks
587
00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:34.280
who was in the closet when the film was made
588
00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:43.719
and couldn't be himself. So he did. He He only
589
00:44:43.760 --> 00:44:46.280
came out at the age of eighty two in his
590
00:44:46.320 --> 00:44:50.119
autobiography in twenty fifteen.
591
00:44:52.840 --> 00:44:58.079
Can you imagine he did suffer a lot.
592
00:44:58.280 --> 00:45:03.679
He very much wanted me to make an opera and
593
00:45:04.079 --> 00:45:08.199
make Awakenings into an opera, and unfortunately he didn't live
594
00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:10.719
to see it, but he did see see us make
595
00:45:10.760 --> 00:45:14.559
it into a valet for the Rombre Dance Company in
596
00:45:15.599 --> 00:45:21.320
England because the material is just so rich. But in
597
00:45:21.400 --> 00:45:24.199
the in the opera there is This opera is also
598
00:45:24.679 --> 00:45:28.760
for those of you who want to to watch an
599
00:45:28.800 --> 00:45:32.760
opera on your computer. Is also on my YouTube channel
600
00:45:33.559 --> 00:45:35.920
and can be It's the only place that these operas
601
00:45:35.920 --> 00:45:39.880
can be seen until you see them in the theater.
602
00:45:40.559 --> 00:45:43.239
And I don't know when that one will come around next.
603
00:45:45.599 --> 00:45:51.920
So so you had you had yourself really personally vested
604
00:45:52.840 --> 00:45:56.159
in this story. How is that for you? What did
605
00:45:56.239 --> 00:45:58.280
it What kinds of things did it bring up?
606
00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:11.679
Well, my I like it, like every story I do.
607
00:46:11.880 --> 00:46:17.000
I lives in, lives in in my heart and in
608
00:46:17.039 --> 00:46:25.960
my show, and so it brought up similar things to Lilielva,
609
00:46:26.039 --> 00:46:29.880
for instance, my other other operas. But the sense of
610
00:46:29.920 --> 00:46:30.719
my own.
611
00:46:31.360 --> 00:46:35.960
Otherness, your I was going to say, your your otherness.
612
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:41.320
And they being neurodivergent, growing up gay at a time
613
00:46:41.360 --> 00:46:46.679
when it was I mean, it doesn't speak of such things.
614
00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:58.480
And uh so, I I think I think it's probably
615
00:46:58.519 --> 00:47:02.800
having these these characteristics.
616
00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:13.079
Gave me some perhaps a certain appreciation for for the challenges.
617
00:47:14.239 --> 00:47:18.639
That's some of our our friends are trands after meet
618
00:47:19.400 --> 00:47:22.880
or in an Oliver's case, someone who had to live
619
00:47:22.920 --> 00:47:24.920
his life in the closet, right.
620
00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:28.960
And I think all of this.
621
00:47:30.440 --> 00:47:34.119
Brings a unique kind of empathy to the kind of work.
622
00:47:33.920 --> 00:47:34.719
That you do.
623
00:47:37.079 --> 00:47:40.800
Because you're experiencing it on a whole other level and
624
00:47:40.840 --> 00:47:45.119
creating it on a whole other level. And you know
625
00:47:45.199 --> 00:47:50.440
that's that's in its in its greatness, and what you do, I.
626
00:47:50.400 --> 00:47:55.880
Think are the artist's responsibility to find their their core
627
00:47:56.480 --> 00:48:01.119
and what is really the most resonant part of our soul,
628
00:48:01.400 --> 00:48:06.000
to to share with the world and hope that the
629
00:48:06.039 --> 00:48:12.880
world has a chance to experience experience it through through
630
00:48:12.920 --> 00:48:13.519
our filter.
631
00:48:14.480 --> 00:48:14.880
Yeah.
632
00:48:14.920 --> 00:48:18.000
Well, by the creation of it, you're giving the world
633
00:48:18.039 --> 00:48:21.519
a chance to have some of the experience you had
634
00:48:21.559 --> 00:48:22.280
in creating it.
635
00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:24.440
And to me, you know what, that's that's a gift
636
00:48:24.480 --> 00:48:25.559
to be able to do that.
637
00:48:26.639 --> 00:48:28.880
I'm going to ask you, what are you working on
638
00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:33.159
something now that you can share or things coming up?
639
00:48:33.880 --> 00:48:37.760
We're working on a new opera about anti Semitism. Oh
640
00:48:37.840 --> 00:48:43.239
my goodness, I'm also I'm also I have to belong
641
00:48:43.360 --> 00:48:50.000
to another majority, which is the Jewish people. I mean minority.
642
00:48:50.119 --> 00:48:55.400
I think I said majority minority and so and and
643
00:48:55.599 --> 00:49:02.320
it's another way of another othering experience to grow up. Yes, you,
644
00:49:02.599 --> 00:49:13.480
And it deals with antisemitism in America, and it's I
645
00:49:13.519 --> 00:49:18.079
think it's it's a it's a pretty explosive topic.
646
00:49:19.800 --> 00:49:21.960
You actually you know, choose.
647
00:49:23.159 --> 00:49:27.559
Yeah, well you choose topics that quote unquote are not
648
00:49:27.719 --> 00:49:31.400
the norm. And there their topics that are out there,
649
00:49:31.440 --> 00:49:34.119
and their topics that a lot of people wouldn't take
650
00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:38.239
a chance on. I'm excited for your for your next piece.
651
00:49:39.119 --> 00:49:43.039
I'm excited, uh to see Lily Elbow up when it
652
00:49:43.079 --> 00:49:45.679
comes to the United States. I hope it's you know,
653
00:49:45.719 --> 00:49:46.880
in the New York area.
654
00:49:47.159 --> 00:49:50.000
And so it makes it easy for me to to
655
00:49:50.119 --> 00:49:53.480
come and see where can people find.
656
00:49:53.280 --> 00:49:57.119
You Tobiaspicker dot com.
657
00:49:57.239 --> 00:50:02.880
Okay, great, Wikipedia, Yeah, well that's the easy stuff Wikipedia.
658
00:50:02.960 --> 00:50:05.239
But I'm also going to call out your YouTube channel.
659
00:50:05.760 --> 00:50:06.800
My YouTube channel.
660
00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:09.960
YouTube channel is really really great because that's what I
661
00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:11.360
call meat and potatoes.
662
00:50:11.880 --> 00:50:16.000
Has most of my offeras are there. My opera is there.
663
00:50:19.599 --> 00:50:21.639
I think they're all there, A lot of them, A
664
00:50:21.639 --> 00:50:22.119
lot of my.
665
00:50:22.400 --> 00:50:24.920
Concert works are there and the concert work is there.
666
00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:27.599
Well, if you can believe this time is out and
667
00:50:27.679 --> 00:50:30.800
I don't know where the conversation ran out.
668
00:50:30.840 --> 00:50:33.639
I just feel like I could spend hours talking to you.
669
00:50:33.920 --> 00:50:37.280
I always like to take a picture of my guest
670
00:50:37.599 --> 00:50:41.280
on this one dimensional screen, so if you look into
671
00:50:41.360 --> 00:50:47.840
my camera, okay, where we go? And well more and
672
00:50:47.920 --> 00:50:52.639
thank you, truly enjoyed talking with you, Wishing you a
673
00:50:52.679 --> 00:50:56.639
wonderful holiday and the best with all your work. And
674
00:50:56.719 --> 00:50:59.440
of course I Facebook friended you, and you know, want
675
00:50:59.440 --> 00:51:01.360
to stay on top of everything that you're doing.
676
00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:07.440
Oh, absolutely, and have a wonderful holiday. Thank you to
677
00:51:07.519 --> 00:51:09.360
everybody who tuned in today.
678
00:51:09.519 --> 00:51:12.920
Have a wonderful holiday, and we'll see you all next time.
679
00:51:13.320 --> 00:51:42.360
Bye bye,
1
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:02.279
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
2
00:00:02.319 --> 00:00:04.000
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
3
00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:05.320
those of W FOURCY Radio.
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It's employees are affiliates.
5
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We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
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explicit or implied shall be extended to W four CY
8
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Radio or it's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments
9
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should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
10
00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:54.520
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
11
00:00:56.159 --> 00:01:01.240
Welcod evening, everybody, and welcome to Triversity Talk. My official
12
00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:04.000
co host tonight, of course, is my dog Nugget. He
13
00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:06.280
either wants a walk or something to eat. He only
14
00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:08.680
comes to me when he wants something, Like people in
15
00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:11.879
the world. I am so happy to have everybody with
16
00:01:11.959 --> 00:01:15.560
me on this Wednesday night, getting ready for the whole
17
00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:19.599
holiday season. So much to do, and as you know,
18
00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:25.280
I'm broadcasting from New York City, but Traversity Our LGBTQS
19
00:01:25.319 --> 00:01:30.159
center is in Milford, Pennsylvania, Diversity the Pride Center.
20
00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:33.920
We have various open hours. Please make sure.
21
00:01:33.719 --> 00:01:37.959
You check our site online, both our Facebook site and
22
00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:40.879
our website to find out when our open hours are.
23
00:01:41.560 --> 00:01:44.680
We're always happy to have you drop in and again
24
00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:46.799
we're an amazing resource service.
25
00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:49.159
Or if you just want to have a little.
26
00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:52.200
Talk or just get out of the cold, please come
27
00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:55.359
in and see us. Thank you all so much. So
28
00:01:56.120 --> 00:02:01.159
there's been a lot of talk about trans gender bills
29
00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:05.519
being passed, right, and it's something that we've been talking
30
00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:08.960
about for the last year and a half, to say
31
00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:09.520
the least.
32
00:02:09.639 --> 00:02:12.080
And now as we move.
33
00:02:11.919 --> 00:02:15.280
Forward into January, there are a lot of things on
34
00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:18.240
the table, I'll just put it that way, and none
35
00:02:18.280 --> 00:02:21.039
of us know where these things are going to be going.
36
00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:25.759
So I was very interested when I heard about tonight's
37
00:02:25.800 --> 00:02:31.560
guest because what this person is doing as a creative
38
00:02:32.039 --> 00:02:38.159
composer is shining a light on transgender Our guest Tonight
39
00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:45.759
is from New York and is a composer described as
40
00:02:46.039 --> 00:02:51.360
one of the most consistently interesting amongst the present generation
41
00:02:52.120 --> 00:02:57.520
of United States theater composers. Okay, so, Grammy Award winner
42
00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:02.439
has done so many interesting operas which I am going
43
00:03:02.479 --> 00:03:03.919
to uh.
44
00:03:03.719 --> 00:03:06.280
Wait with baby breath to have him tell us about.
45
00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:07.520
I'm very excited about that.
46
00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:13.599
So please, without further ado, please welcome to bias picker.
47
00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:19.280
Thank you, and there you are.
48
00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:23.479
We're always happy when the introduction works and the guest appears.
49
00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:26.120
And nothing happens with the Wi Fi.
50
00:03:26.199 --> 00:03:29.120
Thank you so much, first of all for taking time
51
00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:32.000
out of your You're incredibly busy.
52
00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:40.719
Now, yes that's true, Okay, I do, I do. I
53
00:03:40.759 --> 00:03:44.159
have learned how to take time for myself and and
54
00:03:44.199 --> 00:03:47.120
this is time time for myself and it's time for
55
00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:49.360
to share my experience.
56
00:03:49.479 --> 00:03:51.879
So well, I want to thank you.
57
00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:55.919
I want to thank you for that because you just
58
00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:59.520
hit on something. You're sharing your experience, and when you
59
00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:03.879
do share your experience, it shares that with people that
60
00:04:03.960 --> 00:04:07.719
are out there, people that will learn something. Sometimes the
61
00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:11.599
sharing will make people feel better about themselves. But certainly
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we like to think people leave this show knowing a
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little more, experiencing a little more. So I'm going to
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start with our present. How did you get known for
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casting and creating work around transgender.
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Well, it started when I was asked to if I
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wanted to write an opera commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of
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the Stonewall Rebellion, and I started researching who all was
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in you know, throwing bottles and who who all really
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was responsible for rebelling and Uh, and I started learning
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about trans people in a way that I had not
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understood before. Uh, there's there's significance to the to the
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what was then called the gay rights movement, and and
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and their participation in every aspect of society. I I
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I I thought for an opera that which I did,
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I didn't do it. I didn't write an opera about
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Snowmall in the end because I decided to do what
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I did instead. I preferred that the story. But I
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thought any opera that ah that that featured march A P.
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Johnson and I could have trans singers in it. But
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I didn't know of any trans opera singers. And a
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friend of mine said, oh, yes, there are there are
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some you should You should look up Lucia Lucas. And
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Lucia Lucas was was very happy to hear from me
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when I got in touch with her and said, I,
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I'd love to hear you sing. And she she lives
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in Germany now and she included New York and auditioned
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for us. And I am me at the time, was
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running the Tulsa Opera as well as doing my own thing,
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and I was casting Don Giovanni. So I immediately cast
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her as Don Giovanni in our production of Don Giovanni
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in Tulsa Opera, and and we became friends. And I
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I had this idea, not about Stonewall, but a different
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idea that was about about the life of Lily Elba,
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which was made famous to the general public by a
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film called The Danish Girl. And she was a painter.
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Both she and her wife were painters.
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Famous painters, Yeah, exactly from from Copenhagen and they and this,
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this story really gripped me when I first encountered it.
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And so going back to Lily Elba's own memoirs, my
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libretti who are left Stoleman my also my partner in
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life and my husband, my partner of forty five years,
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I would say.
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Wow, congratulations, that's a long time.
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Yes, I wrote the wrote the libretto for this and
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with them, well, the first thing I did was ask Lucia,
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would you would you want an opera? Would you want
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to play Louly Elva in an opera? And and she
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said yes, without hesitating, that's that's my story. And so
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she became our dramatrig which was meant that she advised
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us on all aspects of how to approach the subject
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and both historically and and contemporarily, and the differences between
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how between language, how we use language today and how
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we used how there was no language one hundred years ago,
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when Lily Elba was having one of the first gender
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affirmation surgeries.
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That ever, which were disastrous in those days.
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Was disastrous and killed her in the end. So yeah, so,
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But I became interested in because I would have liked
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to commemorate Stonewall, but I didn't see I didn't see
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it as an operatic subject. But it made me get
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I started getting very interested in the hero the heroines
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of Stonewall and their descendants, of which I think of
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Luccia as one of because she's an advocate for people
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of trans experience and especially in the opera world, probably
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the most famous opera singer in the world today of
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trans experience, although there are there are now quite a.
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Few, there have been quite a few that have come along.
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But it's funny when we talk about transgender people will
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think of Stonewall.
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Okay, they'll think of Marsha P. Johnson.
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They won't necessarily think of opera because personally, I feel
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there were so many people that switched roles in the opera.
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They just always did. You know, it was totally accepted,
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So maybe it wasn't so unusual if you understand what
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I'm saying. You know now the word transgender, right, Oh,
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there's someone who's transgend gender playing.
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A role in an opera, so they would call that out.
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Now, I'm curious with the history of opera, which you
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are the expert, not I, in the history of opera,
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how did transgender play out?
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Well, there were there were, There were lots of switchings
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of roles. If if you take the composer in in
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in A for instance, is sung by a mezzo soprano
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woman traditionally, but but she's playing a man as the composer.
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And uh. And we find the same thing in mostart
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marriage of figure out and and through throughout the history
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of opera. So the gender gender fluidity has has existed
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throughout the four hundred years history, but never specifically, not
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never as specifically as as it did when we wrote
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To the Elbow, where we had an actual transgender artist
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playing the role of a transgender person who was actually
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an historical figure that that that was something that we're
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very proud of having done for the first time.
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Absolutely, and I'm I'm sure is how much did the
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film The Danish Girl? How much was the opera based
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on the Danish Girl?
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It was, It wasn't based on the Danish Girl at all.
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Yeah, there were not even any kinds of connections to
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because I remember that film quite well.
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There were there are coincidences because the Danish Girl, Uh,
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it is based on a book which was which took
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took from the original sources some to some of the
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same original sources that we grew out, grew grew upon
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for our narrative, specifically Man and Too Women by Lily Elbow,
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which is her story. And but there was not there
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is nothing from the film. We took nothing from the
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film or the book for the for the movie. For
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the opera, we were they were drawing on the same
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original sources of information that we were.
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That you did to create a piece like that, how
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long did it take you?
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Well, the pandemic intervene, so normally it would take two
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or two and a half for three years, but with
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the pandemic, uh, we were. We postponed the premiere, but absolutely,
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Usually it's usually one opera usually is two to three years, yeah,
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four or five in the planning from begining inception two
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to the premiere.
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Wow, it really is a labor of love. Lily Albe
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was very well received when it opened up at the
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Theater Saint Golan and Saint.
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Gallen in Switzerland, Eastern Switzerland a year ago, and it
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was very, very very well received by the German speaking press.
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Well won an award from Hope magazine, which is one
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of the leading opera magazines in Germany, as best World
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Premiere of twenty twenty three.
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Well, that's really quite an honor. I'm thinking about an
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opera like this now in the political landscape that is
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ahead of us, which is extremely uncertain, and I'm I
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was going to say, I'm not quite sure trans friendly.
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I'm not sure it's trans friendly at all. Where are
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you planning on showing the opera here?
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Well, we will have an American premiere, Yes, a major
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American premiere of the opera in twenty twenty six, and
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that is going to be announced in May.
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To follow you on social media, your website.
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Then I can't say where, because it's up to the
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opera company to announce the premiere and not the composer, right,
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that will be premiered and people can see it from
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all over. In fact, if there's a film of the opera,
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that's that's easily easy to access on my YouTube channel
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of the whole of the whole production that was premiered
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in Saint Helen.
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And and actually I did access it on your YouTube channel.
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But seeing opera live, of course, there's there's nothing like it.
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No, it's there's a magic you cannot translate.
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Into exactly exactly because computers are such a flat medium.
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So your story, how did you become a composer?
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I tend to think I was born as a composer.
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I don't. I don't remember the time before I was.
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I started very well because I started when I was eight, so,
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but the the cultural climate was different when I was
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eight and network television CBS television showed young people's concerts
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from the New York Philharmonic.
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I do you remember the young people's concerts?
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And they were taped for broadcast every Saturday. And there
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were there were operas on network television, so I I
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was exposed to a contemporary opera, very young them all
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in the night visitors. When I was a child, it
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was on every Christmas, and and so there were things
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like things like that, being taken to a learn My
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mother took me to a Learner burn Sun Young People's concert.
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I remember those right.
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We attended Andre Watson's historic debut and in Philharmonic Hall.
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And there are all these influences around me. That music
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was just it was just part of our household in
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our life and music, art and literature, and it was
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for me there was no real choice, right.
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You came from a house where not only were you
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exposed to it, but I wanted to ask you about
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your parents, which one of them or both are musically
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oriented or musically gifted.
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Well, my mother was a very accomplished painter and shoe designer,
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and she also played the piano. She learned the piano
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as a child. They had a piano and their home,
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and so she was mainly exposing me to classical music
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when I.
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Was very very very small, at a young age.
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But my father listened to the same music. So there
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was there was the exposure from both. And he exposed
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me to great art and took me to the to
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the great museums of the world, and so both of them,
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and also he was he was uh, literally literarily inclined.
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So I was exposed to do great books by him.
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That My mother was the one who who would was
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reading composer biographies when I was a small child and
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for some reason became obsessed with them.
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No, I would have you know, because you are a kid.
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Kids do tend to veeer off of things. But from
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what I'm getting from you, you were in credit focused,
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surrounded by it and absolutely loved it with a passion
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from very young. Now as you got into your ten years,
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I always like asking people this, where did you end
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up going to school?
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I went to public school from from kindergarten through twelfth
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grade in Bedford, New York. But at the age of ten,
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I started attending the Juilliard Preparatory Division. On okay, yeah,
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Saturday after I would spend the day in the city
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on Saturday, take the train in hundred twenty fifth Street
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and the Crosstown bus and have my theory, my piano lesson,
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my year training lessons, and go home practice.
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So you are absolutely molded for the career that you have.
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Well. Yes, without my parents realizing that, they were very
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surprised when I told them I planned to pursue a
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career as a composer. They weren't. They weren't. They just
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thought that was a normal exposure to expose your children
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to and then they would get a normal job. But
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they would have they would live a life of culture.
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Right, But you didn't want to play suborb.
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You never expected me to become a composer. Wow, my sisters.
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My sister's an accomplished artists. I don't think they expected her.
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People to don't necessarily turn out the way their parents
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are expecting them to.
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Know that that's true.
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But the amount of culture that you grew up with
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is you know, really impressive. Can say, were you raised
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in New York? You were in Bedford? You said you
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went to school. Is that where you grew up For
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the most.
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Part, I grew up in Westchester?
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Yeah, Westchester's I mean, my cousins grew up in Westchester.
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They're great people, they're well educated, but you know, they
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don't have your background. So I love that your parents
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put so much into you. And even though you surprise
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them in the in the end, I kudos to them,
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you know, for knowing the value of raising a child
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and that kind of arts background. For some reason, I
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think nowadays is maybe more challenging because there's more.
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When you were growing.
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Up, there wasn't the internet, right, I don't know if
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there was Xbox.
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I don't play any of that.
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But the TV said.
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Just the TV set or you didn't. Yeah, you watched
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TV radio. Get TV radio.
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Right, listen to w q x R. And we had
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a guide program guide, so I could plan what I
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was going to listen to.
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You would plan what you listened to. Now that is
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definitely a focused kid. Well, so when you where did
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you graduate away from university?
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Where did you go?
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I went? I went to the first I went to
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the Manhattan School of Music for my undergraduate degree. Then
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I went to the Juilliard School for my Masters of Music,
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and then I went to Princeton for a Master's of
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00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:19.640
Fine Arts. Right then, I was enough. I felt like
308
00:22:19.720 --> 00:22:23.200
I was. It was enough degrees and oh.
309
00:22:23.039 --> 00:22:27.480
My gosh, it's a ton of degrees and an incredible pedigree.
310
00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:33.319
So I'm curious because I have had various friends involved
311
00:22:33.319 --> 00:22:38.839
in opera. My friend Joe Bishetta ran the Fresno Opera Company.
312
00:22:39.680 --> 00:22:43.000
Often the opera companies get in trouble financially.
313
00:22:44.119 --> 00:22:44.839
Why is that?
314
00:22:45.319 --> 00:22:49.960
Is there not enough people that attend opera or it's
315
00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:51.200
the cost to produce.
316
00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:55.759
So many people that perform in opera. I wonder both.
317
00:22:55.839 --> 00:23:02.599
It's extremely expensive to produce and and the audience is shrinking.
318
00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:07.000
The audience is shrinking.
319
00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:13.400
The audience the audience audiences today have in their pockets.
320
00:23:13.559 --> 00:23:18.039
They have they can have entertainment from of any kind,
321
00:23:18.119 --> 00:23:21.119
from anywhere in the world. Not three dimensional, as you
322
00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:27.079
pointed out, but they can what they can stream. We couldn't.
323
00:23:27.359 --> 00:23:31.599
There was no such thing as streaming until until all
324
00:23:31.640 --> 00:23:35.200
of this started in the last thirty years. This has changed.
325
00:23:35.240 --> 00:23:40.039
This has changed people's behavior from staying into going out.
326
00:23:40.160 --> 00:23:44.319
For instance, just a simple choice, can I can I
327
00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:48.400
do I really want to go out to the opera house?
328
00:23:48.519 --> 00:23:53.079
Or when I can, when I can watch something the similar,
329
00:23:53.160 --> 00:23:58.279
same thing or similar on my on my fabulous you know.
330
00:23:58.559 --> 00:23:59.519
That screen TV.
331
00:23:59.799 --> 00:24:03.160
But I'm sure you'll agree with me we're talking about
332
00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:06.720
those are like two totally different entities. It's not even
333
00:24:06.759 --> 00:24:11.319
in the same reality.
334
00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:15.960
Dimensions versus two the experience. You can't experience theater or
335
00:24:16.519 --> 00:24:20.519
in it two dimensional, really really experience it.
336
00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:25.559
No, you absolutely can't. Did you find that when you
337
00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:26.920
work in Europe.
338
00:24:26.759 --> 00:24:30.480
As opposed to hear that the operas are more well
339
00:24:30.519 --> 00:24:33.480
attended in Europe.
340
00:24:34.440 --> 00:24:38.119
I would say it's I would say that it's much
341
00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:40.680
more baked into the culture and has been for a
342
00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:45.640
longer a number of years, than it has into the
343
00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:46.680
American culture.
344
00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:47.519
Right.
345
00:24:48.359 --> 00:24:53.279
Also, it's supported by the state, So there's a tremendous,
346
00:24:53.799 --> 00:24:58.119
tremendous difference in the amount of resources that go into
347
00:24:59.079 --> 00:25:06.680
supporting opera by the state, and compared to our country,
348
00:25:06.680 --> 00:25:12.680
where we don't have it's very state support funding for
349
00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:15.920
the art. It's not even worth mentioning.
350
00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:22.160
It's so small, right, right, it makes me wonder. To me,
351
00:25:22.599 --> 00:25:29.599
like the opera live is just absolutely spectacular. There's nothing
352
00:25:29.720 --> 00:25:31.599
like it. There's no experience like it.
353
00:25:31.640 --> 00:25:35.680
And I worry, you know, this next generation coming up
354
00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:36.720
if they're.
355
00:25:36.519 --> 00:25:37.200
Exposed to it.
356
00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:39.759
And again, it's great for people that can't get to
357
00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:43.720
the opera. They can turn on YouTube and see your opera.
358
00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:49.880
But it is so vastly, vastly different than the thrill
359
00:25:49.960 --> 00:25:54.359
of the real experience. And it's magic when you see
360
00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:57.119
it in the theater. It's magic when you see it
361
00:25:57.319 --> 00:26:02.200
in a very very old theater. Right, It's just not
362
00:26:02.359 --> 00:26:06.039
the same when you stream it or watch it.
363
00:26:06.119 --> 00:26:06.720
On TV.
364
00:26:07.200 --> 00:26:09.559
I can only hope that the kids that are coming
365
00:26:09.680 --> 00:26:13.680
up that are oriented towards you and maybe have parents
366
00:26:13.720 --> 00:26:17.559
that are like yours that put such an emphasis. Your
367
00:26:17.640 --> 00:26:21.000
parents put an emphasis on their normalcy of that kind
368
00:26:21.039 --> 00:26:23.880
of culture. It was just normal, right, That was how
369
00:26:23.920 --> 00:26:25.640
you were growing up, and you were exposed to all
370
00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:25.960
of that.
371
00:26:27.400 --> 00:26:33.160
I thought I thought it was normal, but it was
372
00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:35.039
different from most of my friends.
373
00:26:35.279 --> 00:26:36.839
Yeah, of course a few of them.
374
00:26:36.920 --> 00:26:40.559
A few of them had grew up like the not
375
00:26:40.599 --> 00:26:46.519
actually most of them didn't. It was very important to
376
00:26:47.279 --> 00:26:50.119
my parents to take us to Italy when we were
377
00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:52.759
young and see and see.
378
00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:55.079
All the historical monuments and why they're there.
379
00:26:55.599 --> 00:26:59.960
Thought in person now, those things make a deep impression
380
00:27:00.039 --> 00:27:01.559
on the twelve years the Pieta.
381
00:27:01.640 --> 00:27:06.720
Yeah, yeah, you definitely end up taking that with you. Well, okay,
382
00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:11.000
we have two clips that I chose her tonight that
383
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:14.119
I thought you sent them to me, but I probably
384
00:27:14.119 --> 00:27:15.400
got them off of your.
385
00:27:15.160 --> 00:27:17.039
Site, which is very comprehensive.
386
00:27:17.599 --> 00:27:20.880
And if our producer can play those clips now, we'd
387
00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:21.480
like to watch.
388
00:27:21.559 --> 00:27:23.400
Thank you, Lily Elbo.
389
00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:31.119
Yes, Lily Elba underwent gender affirmation surgery in nineteen thirty
390
00:27:31.160 --> 00:27:34.359
at a time when nobody had done that before. Lily
391
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:39.680
Elba was an artist before, named Einar Wegener, and this
392
00:27:39.839 --> 00:27:42.720
is a painting by her from nineteen oh seven of
393
00:27:43.440 --> 00:27:45.720
the mountains at Versailles.
394
00:27:47.279 --> 00:27:50.960
I'm so excited about our offer Lily Alba, which tells
395
00:27:51.400 --> 00:27:56.000
Lily's story of transition. It's a beautiful story of Lily
396
00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:59.759
and her wife discovering who they are as artists and people.
397
00:28:00.599 --> 00:28:04.880
It's special to me because I've had so many of
398
00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:06.680
those same feelings, and there's so many.
399
00:28:06.559 --> 00:28:10.400
Parallels in the last Journey. In my journey.
400
00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:18.279
This opera is my most transcendental work musically, it is different.
401
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:19.640
From anything I've written.
402
00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:23.799
It is about the eternity of the earth, the eternal
403
00:28:23.839 --> 00:29:04.000
beauty of the earth, about rebirth and the continuation of life.
404
00:28:45.720 --> 00:28:53.359
Of the world.
405
00:29:36.759 --> 00:29:37.799
Thank you so much.
406
00:29:38.680 --> 00:29:44.400
So, of course I have questions, what were the biggest
407
00:29:44.519 --> 00:29:49.359
challenges in creating Lily Elba from its conception to the
408
00:29:49.480 --> 00:29:50.720
actual production on.
409
00:29:50.799 --> 00:29:56.079
Stage surviving.
410
00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:01.839
That's a good, honest answer, Please share.
411
00:30:03.079 --> 00:30:07.519
Well, it's writing an opera is a lot of work.
412
00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:09.799
Yes, there are.
413
00:30:11.279 --> 00:30:17.799
Thousands and thousands of notes and words and an awful
414
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:20.039
lot of things going on at the same time. So
415
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:29.480
to say what was the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge
416
00:30:29.519 --> 00:30:37.839
was creating a large form that worked, that would be
417
00:30:37.960 --> 00:30:48.920
able to contain and explain Lilie Elba in a truthful,
418
00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:00.200
too truthful and accurate and an empathic way. And I
419
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:04.240
think I think we achieved that, but it did take
420
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:05.960
it took a few years to do.
421
00:31:07.880 --> 00:31:14.440
I would imagine, I think using the word empathic, maybe
422
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:16.640
that's what I was getting out when I was asking
423
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:18.880
about the challenges of it.
424
00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:20.839
I mean the subject matter.
425
00:31:21.880 --> 00:31:26.880
And again, I don't know if if opera is like
426
00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:32.039
producing other forms of theater, but it always has to
427
00:31:32.119 --> 00:31:36.000
run through the creator's head. How is this going to
428
00:31:36.039 --> 00:31:38.960
be received? How do I create something that's going to
429
00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:43.039
be well received? How do I get my message received?
430
00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:44.880
What was that like for you?
431
00:31:47.400 --> 00:31:53.160
Well? I wanted to place the first performance of this
432
00:31:53.240 --> 00:32:04.799
opera in the most secure and safe environment possible, so
433
00:32:04.920 --> 00:32:08.400
I talked to many opera houses. I wanted it also
434
00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:12.079
to premiere in Europe because they were literally and Getta
435
00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:21.880
were Europeans, and I felt it was important. So I
436
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:25.640
talked to many opera houses about how to present it.
437
00:32:25.720 --> 00:32:32.039
But it was it was a theater in Saint Gallen
438
00:32:32.839 --> 00:32:36.759
and Young Henry Bogan, who's the general director of that
439
00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:42.519
theater and in charge of all opera that that really understood,
440
00:32:43.039 --> 00:32:48.720
really got got the subject. The director that that we
441
00:32:48.759 --> 00:32:53.359
worked with, Christian Lata, they really understood what the kinds
442
00:32:53.400 --> 00:33:01.160
of things we were working with. They designed a safe
443
00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:06.000
space for a lot of people to work in on
444
00:33:06.039 --> 00:33:18.359
some very very difficult, uh challenging material. And the cast
445
00:33:18.519 --> 00:33:20.519
just from the from the point of view of casting,
446
00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:30.519
the cast was it was there were two trans three
447
00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:34.039
besides the g Lucas, there were two other trans people
448
00:33:34.039 --> 00:33:39.480
in the cast and one of the assistant directors was trans.
449
00:33:40.559 --> 00:33:44.319
A lot of people behind the scenes, uh. But it
450
00:33:44.440 --> 00:33:50.359
was also it was a very inclusive cast and including
451
00:33:50.400 --> 00:33:57.519
including all of all of the letters of the.
452
00:33:55.880 --> 00:33:59.160
Spectrum as we say yes, yes.
453
00:33:59.039 --> 00:34:06.240
Actually and and that was very magical and consoling to
454
00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:09.719
work in that environment. It was one It was really
455
00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:14.159
one of them. I've worked in some great opera houses,
456
00:34:14.239 --> 00:34:18.679
including the met which is unsurpassable, but I mean it
457
00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:25.119
was one of the one of the great artistic, personal
458
00:34:25.920 --> 00:34:29.840
professional experiences of my life because it was such a
459
00:34:31.480 --> 00:34:34.519
because the the the opera house, the people that Grand
460
00:34:34.639 --> 00:34:37.119
Opera House understood what we were going for.
461
00:34:37.519 --> 00:34:42.639
Yeah, you're probably the first person that was doing that
462
00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:43.760
kind of an opera.
463
00:34:44.440 --> 00:34:48.719
Well, others have done small, smaller scale operas based on
464
00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:52.000
the trans characters, but this was this was a grand
465
00:34:52.039 --> 00:35:00.679
opera and a full evening. Uh So, yeah, that's that's true.
466
00:35:01.119 --> 00:35:05.440
What what was interesting was that the the audiences that
467
00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:08.559
turned out and what I was told was a very
468
00:35:08.599 --> 00:35:19.159
conservative area of Switzerland easterns which borders Austria and Germany.
469
00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:23.880
Uh but they people came back several times and there
470
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:26.440
were sold out houses, not all of them, but they
471
00:35:26.440 --> 00:35:30.320
were the ones that weren't were sold well. And it
472
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:35.599
was it was an experience for people to learn that
473
00:35:37.639 --> 00:35:47.559
as I as I I like to say that with
474
00:35:47.719 --> 00:35:54.880
apologies to Gandhi, all men are not brothers, but all
475
00:35:55.960 --> 00:35:59.400
we are all siblings. Yeah, And I thought that was
476
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:03.480
the message that the people who came to see that
477
00:36:03.519 --> 00:36:07.159
the opera in the theater took away from the experience
478
00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:12.480
that these are human beings with human problems like mine.
479
00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:18.920
Right, which brings me to the fact that I believe.
480
00:36:18.599 --> 00:36:25.320
That our opera, theater or film books are the bridge
481
00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:31.880
that can open up minds and change minds. And you know,
482
00:36:31.960 --> 00:36:34.960
right now, to me, you have such an important piece.
483
00:36:36.079 --> 00:36:37.320
It hasn't been done here.
484
00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:42.800
I'm excited for when you bring this to the United States,
485
00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:48.039
and again because of my awareness of where things are
486
00:36:48.079 --> 00:36:51.079
at politically now and the kinds of bills.
487
00:36:50.639 --> 00:36:52.960
That are being proposed out there.
488
00:36:53.159 --> 00:36:58.000
And the kind of backlash and the way things have gone,
489
00:36:58.159 --> 00:37:02.159
and the fact that very basics, you know, there's talk
490
00:37:02.679 --> 00:37:06.400
about taking people's hormones away from them. I mean, things
491
00:37:06.400 --> 00:37:11.000
that are absolutely blasphemous are now on the table right
492
00:37:11.599 --> 00:37:14.119
Someone like you creates such an incredible This is so
493
00:37:14.239 --> 00:37:18.000
incredibly beautiful and it's very obvious even from the tiny
494
00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:21.920
snippet that you showed to our audience tonight, you've not
495
00:37:21.960 --> 00:37:26.760
only created a beautiful piece, you created a piece of equality.
496
00:37:26.800 --> 00:37:28.920
And you did create a safe space.
497
00:37:29.719 --> 00:37:32.599
And I think for me, the message I want to
498
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:37.239
get out there is that safe space needs to be
499
00:37:37.719 --> 00:37:42.639
communicated to people everywhere that are threatened by other people's equality.
500
00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:46.280
There's room for all of us. And you know, Pardon
501
00:37:46.400 --> 00:37:47.840
is saying we need to live and let.
502
00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:53.599
Live well that is also that's also a good message
503
00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:03.360
of this, and I think, yeah, I agree, it's a
504
00:38:03.599 --> 00:38:07.800
it's a this is a different time to present to
505
00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:12.400
present Lilli Elba in America, in this America that we
506
00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:16.639
are facing now, America would have been if we had
507
00:38:16.639 --> 00:38:22.320
been facing a different kind of America that we've some
508
00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:24.719
of us thought we were going to or hoped we
509
00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:31.719
would be. So I don't know what to expect from
510
00:38:31.800 --> 00:38:39.480
the I think the public will still be hospitable and
511
00:38:39.480 --> 00:38:42.760
and interested and agreeable, but I don't know whether they'll
512
00:38:43.519 --> 00:38:48.760
I think we live in frightening times, and I I
513
00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:57.559
don't know. I I don't know how kind of whether
514
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:00.440
this will be. You know, it really wasn't It was
515
00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:03.880
somewhat controversial to premiere this in Switzerland.
516
00:39:04.039 --> 00:39:08.199
Especially the area that you that you did it in absolutely.
517
00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:13.559
Not not not really not really controversial, And to do
518
00:39:13.599 --> 00:39:17.280
it in America in a big way. I don't know
519
00:39:17.320 --> 00:39:21.199
whether it will be controversial or not. I Lily is
520
00:39:21.239 --> 00:39:24.679
such a she's such a human character, and all the
521
00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:28.840
characters in the in the show are are very human.
522
00:39:29.039 --> 00:39:33.159
So who knew anything about it and what it was
523
00:39:33.239 --> 00:39:37.039
about would see that it's it's a it's a human
524
00:39:37.400 --> 00:39:45.440
human story, human drama about all the things that take
525
00:39:45.480 --> 00:39:49.119
place in all the classic operas, love and loss and
526
00:39:49.280 --> 00:39:56.280
right and pain, change and pain. So but I don't.
527
00:39:56.360 --> 00:39:59.800
I don't know. I haven't given frankly a lot of
528
00:39:59.800 --> 00:40:03.679
though talk to what's going to be in two years
529
00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:06.119
when we premiered this, it's actually a year and a half.
530
00:40:07.239 --> 00:40:14.000
I don't. I can't. My crystal Ball is out of
531
00:40:14.280 --> 00:40:16.280
UH had a commission.
532
00:40:18.960 --> 00:40:21.119
It's in the draw with my Ouiji board.
533
00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:26.159
I will say, even though you drew from history, you
534
00:40:26.199 --> 00:40:29.880
didn't draw from the film The Danish Girl. I will say,
535
00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:34.480
knowing what I know about people that having that film
536
00:40:34.599 --> 00:40:38.079
The Danish Girl, that had been out and so many
537
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:41.519
people saw it and so many people loved it, I
538
00:40:41.559 --> 00:40:47.159
think that as a base, right, and it gave information.
539
00:40:47.519 --> 00:40:50.719
I think it's very good that that existed as a base.
540
00:40:53.719 --> 00:40:55.960
Well, it's a frame of reference for people who.
541
00:40:56.440 --> 00:41:00.760
I think who happened to see it, right, and I think.
542
00:41:01.559 --> 00:41:05.320
The numbers of people that saw it, and probably many
543
00:41:05.320 --> 00:41:07.440
more people saw that, then we'll be able to go
544
00:41:07.480 --> 00:41:12.079
to the opera. Right. But once people have that knowledge,
545
00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:15.639
I think that will all work in your favor when
546
00:41:15.719 --> 00:41:16.599
you launch it here.
547
00:41:16.920 --> 00:41:20.480
And I for one count, if.
548
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:24.199
You're counting, I would think by the end of time,
549
00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:27.280
more people who have seen the opera than the film.
550
00:41:27.719 --> 00:41:31.159
Yeah, that is probably true.
551
00:41:31.400 --> 00:41:33.559
So I would like to think.
552
00:41:34.599 --> 00:41:39.440
And so, and I wanted to ask you about Awakenings,
553
00:41:39.480 --> 00:41:42.360
the story of doctor Oliver Sacks, if you could talk
554
00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:43.920
a little bit about that opera.
555
00:41:46.400 --> 00:41:50.639
Yes. Awakenings is based on a book that was written
556
00:41:50.679 --> 00:41:55.239
by Oliver Sacks in the nineteen seventies, which W. H.
557
00:41:55.360 --> 00:42:00.280
Auden called a masterpiece. It was about cases that he
558
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:04.800
encountered as a resident neurologist in the Bronx when he
559
00:42:04.920 --> 00:42:08.800
was in the nineteen sixties, when he was a young
560
00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:13.840
young man fresh out of medical school, who had been
561
00:42:14.679 --> 00:42:19.519
the victims of a sleeping sickness that attacked them in
562
00:42:19.559 --> 00:42:23.000
the nineteen twenties and had been asleep for thirty and
563
00:42:23.119 --> 00:42:29.519
forty years, and his experiments to which succeeded in waking
564
00:42:29.639 --> 00:42:35.079
them up as if they were Rip van Winkle or
565
00:42:35.559 --> 00:42:40.000
Rip van Winkle. It's kind of the story of Rippin
566
00:42:40.280 --> 00:42:46.039
van Winkle meets sleeping Beauty. These people that were indoors
567
00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:48.519
for their whole lives because they had to be taken
568
00:42:48.559 --> 00:42:52.039
care of so their skin didn't age the way other
569
00:42:52.039 --> 00:42:58.079
people's skin ages were exposed to the outdoors. And Oliver
570
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:03.159
Sacks wrote this book in the seventies and was made
571
00:43:03.199 --> 00:43:09.760
into a film in nineteen ninety called Awakenings, starring Yeah,
572
00:43:10.639 --> 00:43:16.679
Robert de Niro and Robin Williams as Oliver Sacks, with
573
00:43:16.760 --> 00:43:23.599
a different name for the movie, and it was it
574
00:43:23.639 --> 00:43:28.039
was a great film. We based our opera on the
575
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:39.679
book Awakenings and the My interest in the subject kind
576
00:43:39.679 --> 00:43:43.519
of grew out of a long, long friendship that I
577
00:43:43.559 --> 00:43:45.760
had with doctor Sachs.
578
00:43:47.039 --> 00:43:48.360
That was going to be my question.
579
00:43:49.239 --> 00:43:52.800
This is a very unusual subject matter to begin with,
580
00:43:53.039 --> 00:43:56.159
and then doing an opera about it, So you had
581
00:43:56.159 --> 00:43:57.320
a personal connection.
582
00:43:57.920 --> 00:44:02.239
I had a personal connection, and also I am neurodivergent myself.
583
00:44:03.320 --> 00:44:08.280
I've had Turette syndrome since the age of five or six,
584
00:44:09.039 --> 00:44:14.280
and so a lot of challenges came with that, and
585
00:44:15.360 --> 00:44:22.559
I saw an opportunity in Awakenings to address some of
586
00:44:22.599 --> 00:44:29.519
my own issues and to also reveal an Oliver Sacks
587
00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:34.280
who was in the closet when the film was made
588
00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:43.719
and couldn't be himself. So he did. He He only
589
00:44:43.760 --> 00:44:46.280
came out at the age of eighty two in his
590
00:44:46.320 --> 00:44:50.119
autobiography in twenty fifteen.
591
00:44:52.840 --> 00:44:58.079
Can you imagine he did suffer a lot.
592
00:44:58.280 --> 00:45:03.679
He very much wanted me to make an opera and
593
00:45:04.079 --> 00:45:08.199
make Awakenings into an opera, and unfortunately he didn't live
594
00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:10.719
to see it, but he did see see us make
595
00:45:10.760 --> 00:45:14.559
it into a valet for the Rombre Dance Company in
596
00:45:15.599 --> 00:45:21.320
England because the material is just so rich. But in
597
00:45:21.400 --> 00:45:24.199
the in the opera there is This opera is also
598
00:45:24.679 --> 00:45:28.760
for those of you who want to to watch an
599
00:45:28.800 --> 00:45:32.760
opera on your computer. Is also on my YouTube channel
600
00:45:33.559 --> 00:45:35.920
and can be It's the only place that these operas
601
00:45:35.920 --> 00:45:39.880
can be seen until you see them in the theater.
602
00:45:40.559 --> 00:45:43.239
And I don't know when that one will come around next.
603
00:45:45.599 --> 00:45:51.920
So so you had you had yourself really personally vested
604
00:45:52.840 --> 00:45:56.159
in this story. How is that for you? What did
605
00:45:56.239 --> 00:45:58.280
it What kinds of things did it bring up?
606
00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:11.679
Well, my I like it, like every story I do.
607
00:46:11.880 --> 00:46:17.000
I lives in, lives in in my heart and in
608
00:46:17.039 --> 00:46:25.960
my show, and so it brought up similar things to Lilielva,
609
00:46:26.039 --> 00:46:29.880
for instance, my other other operas. But the sense of
610
00:46:29.920 --> 00:46:30.719
my own.
611
00:46:31.360 --> 00:46:35.960
Otherness, your I was going to say, your your otherness.
612
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:41.320
And they being neurodivergent, growing up gay at a time
613
00:46:41.360 --> 00:46:46.679
when it was I mean, it doesn't speak of such things.
614
00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:58.480
And uh so, I I think I think it's probably
615
00:46:58.519 --> 00:47:02.800
having these these characteristics.
616
00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:13.079
Gave me some perhaps a certain appreciation for for the challenges.
617
00:47:14.239 --> 00:47:18.639
That's some of our our friends are trands after meet
618
00:47:19.400 --> 00:47:22.880
or in an Oliver's case, someone who had to live
619
00:47:22.920 --> 00:47:24.920
his life in the closet, right.
620
00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:28.960
And I think all of this.
621
00:47:30.440 --> 00:47:34.119
Brings a unique kind of empathy to the kind of work.
622
00:47:33.920 --> 00:47:34.719
That you do.
623
00:47:37.079 --> 00:47:40.800
Because you're experiencing it on a whole other level and
624
00:47:40.840 --> 00:47:45.119
creating it on a whole other level. And you know
625
00:47:45.199 --> 00:47:50.440
that's that's in its in its greatness, and what you do, I.
626
00:47:50.400 --> 00:47:55.880
Think are the artist's responsibility to find their their core
627
00:47:56.480 --> 00:48:01.119
and what is really the most resonant part of our soul,
628
00:48:01.400 --> 00:48:06.000
to to share with the world and hope that the
629
00:48:06.039 --> 00:48:12.880
world has a chance to experience experience it through through
630
00:48:12.920 --> 00:48:13.519
our filter.
631
00:48:14.480 --> 00:48:14.880
Yeah.
632
00:48:14.920 --> 00:48:18.000
Well, by the creation of it, you're giving the world
633
00:48:18.039 --> 00:48:21.519
a chance to have some of the experience you had
634
00:48:21.559 --> 00:48:22.280
in creating it.
635
00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:24.440
And to me, you know what, that's that's a gift
636
00:48:24.480 --> 00:48:25.559
to be able to do that.
637
00:48:26.639 --> 00:48:28.880
I'm going to ask you, what are you working on
638
00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:33.159
something now that you can share or things coming up?
639
00:48:33.880 --> 00:48:37.760
We're working on a new opera about anti Semitism. Oh
640
00:48:37.840 --> 00:48:43.239
my goodness, I'm also I'm also I have to belong
641
00:48:43.360 --> 00:48:50.000
to another majority, which is the Jewish people. I mean minority.
642
00:48:50.119 --> 00:48:55.400
I think I said majority minority and so and and
643
00:48:55.599 --> 00:49:02.320
it's another way of another othering experience to grow up. Yes, you,
644
00:49:02.599 --> 00:49:13.480
And it deals with antisemitism in America, and it's I
645
00:49:13.519 --> 00:49:18.079
think it's it's a it's a pretty explosive topic.
646
00:49:19.800 --> 00:49:21.960
You actually you know, choose.
647
00:49:23.159 --> 00:49:27.559
Yeah, well you choose topics that quote unquote are not
648
00:49:27.719 --> 00:49:31.400
the norm. And there their topics that are out there,
649
00:49:31.440 --> 00:49:34.119
and their topics that a lot of people wouldn't take
650
00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:38.239
a chance on. I'm excited for your for your next piece.
651
00:49:39.119 --> 00:49:43.039
I'm excited, uh to see Lily Elbow up when it
652
00:49:43.079 --> 00:49:45.679
comes to the United States. I hope it's you know,
653
00:49:45.719 --> 00:49:46.880
in the New York area.
654
00:49:47.159 --> 00:49:50.000
And so it makes it easy for me to to
655
00:49:50.119 --> 00:49:53.480
come and see where can people find.
656
00:49:53.280 --> 00:49:57.119
You Tobiaspicker dot com.
657
00:49:57.239 --> 00:50:02.880
Okay, great, Wikipedia, Yeah, well that's the easy stuff Wikipedia.
658
00:50:02.960 --> 00:50:05.239
But I'm also going to call out your YouTube channel.
659
00:50:05.760 --> 00:50:06.800
My YouTube channel.
660
00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:09.960
YouTube channel is really really great because that's what I
661
00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:11.360
call meat and potatoes.
662
00:50:11.880 --> 00:50:16.000
Has most of my offeras are there. My opera is there.
663
00:50:19.599 --> 00:50:21.639
I think they're all there, A lot of them, A
664
00:50:21.639 --> 00:50:22.119
lot of my.
665
00:50:22.400 --> 00:50:24.920
Concert works are there and the concert work is there.
666
00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:27.599
Well, if you can believe this time is out and
667
00:50:27.679 --> 00:50:30.800
I don't know where the conversation ran out.
668
00:50:30.840 --> 00:50:33.639
I just feel like I could spend hours talking to you.
669
00:50:33.920 --> 00:50:37.280
I always like to take a picture of my guest
670
00:50:37.599 --> 00:50:41.280
on this one dimensional screen, so if you look into
671
00:50:41.360 --> 00:50:47.840
my camera, okay, where we go? And well more and
672
00:50:47.920 --> 00:50:52.639
thank you, truly enjoyed talking with you, Wishing you a
673
00:50:52.679 --> 00:50:56.639
wonderful holiday and the best with all your work. And
674
00:50:56.719 --> 00:50:59.440
of course I Facebook friended you, and you know, want
675
00:50:59.440 --> 00:51:01.360
to stay on top of everything that you're doing.
676
00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:07.440
Oh, absolutely, and have a wonderful holiday. Thank you to
677
00:51:07.519 --> 00:51:09.360
everybody who tuned in today.
678
00:51:09.519 --> 00:51:12.920
Have a wonderful holiday, and we'll see you all next time.
679
00:51:13.320 --> 00:51:42.360
Bye bye,
