“David Lang has established himself as a master of powerful, large-scale public music through ambitious projects like ‘the public domain,’ for 1,000 voices at Lincoln Center, and ‘symphony for a broken orchestra,’ for hundreds of broken school instruments in Philadelphia,” writes Joshua Barone in Wednesday’s (5/16) New York Times. “He’s back at it again: ‘The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock,’ which will have its premiere Oct. 3-7, is written for 1,000 singers who will perform along the High Line in Manhattan…. ‘I wanted … 1,000 singers each have their own solo stories to sing, and you walk by them,’ he added…. The project is conceived with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the architecture firm that worked on the High Line’s rehabilitation as a park and is now a producer of this project… Elizabeth Diller, one of the firm’s founding partners, will co-direct the production with Lynsey Peisinger…. The libretto, by the poets Anne Carson and Claudia Rankine, is inspired by interviews with people around New York who were asked: What does 7 p.m. mean to you? … Performers will come from a wide-reaching community initiative that involves partnering with organizations in each of New York City’s boroughs.”
Posted May 18, 2018
