Sonnets to Orpheus

chamber opera

"Words and music are integrated into an ethereal multi-dimensional sensory exploration that is sonically and visually immersive…Birrittella infuses it with a sense of wonder.”
– Fabrik Magazine  

Sonnets to Orpheus is a multidisciplinary song cycle for voice, string quartet, ukulele and harmonium, set to Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s cycle of poems which has been called an “utter acceptance of everything that is alive and earthly… the wholeness, the transfigured body of these poems, is a return to the simplest human experiences of seeing and breathing, beyond thought.”

The cycle is scored by 13 composers: Aoife O’Donovan, Jherek Bischoff, Ellen Reid, Qasim Naqvi, Christopher Rountree, Andrew Rowan, Bobby Halvorson, Tim Carr, Danielle Birrittella, Greg Uhlmann, Kyle Sanna, Sheena Wenger, Areni Agbabian, and Derek Stein.

Only in a city such as Los Angeles would we be able to conceive of a project that holds space for exploring the lines between theatre, film, and concert. We are creating an immersive sonic and visual environment that transcends the form of the song cycle.

Produced by LOS ANGELES PERFORMANCE PRACTICE & LAX FESTIVAL