LA Opera Releases World Premiere Of BETWEEN THE ROOMS By Anna Clyne

LA Opera today releases the world premiere of Between the Rooms, the next film in their Digital Shorts series, which features newly commissioned music by Anna Clyne, who sets poetry by Emily Dickinson.

The film is directed and choreographed by Kim Brandstrup, and premieres today, Friday, May 13, 2022 at 11:00am PST, and is now available for streaming on LA Opera's On Now digital platform. Stills from Between the Rooms can be viewed and downloaded here.

In this haunting new film, composer Anna Clyne explores themes of isolation through her musical setting of Dickinson's verses, written for soprano and string quintet. Between the Rooms features soprano Joélle Harvey; internationally renowned dancers Alina Cojocaru, who has performed as a principal dancer with the Hamburg Ballet, London's Royal Ballet, and English National Ballet, and Matthew Ball, a principal dancer with London's Royal Ballet; and members of the Brooklyn-based musical collective The Knights. Eric Jacobsen conducts the project.

"Themes of solitude and creativity resonate with today's experience of enforced isolation as a result of the pandemic," Anna Clyne explains. "Emily Dickinson rarely left her house in the last two decades of her life and Between the Rooms evokes the audible realm that envelopes this lonely figure and explores her journey from solitude to an imaginary world-weaving melodic fragments with hymn-like statements that are conjured by the instrumentation of string quintet with soprano voice."

"When the date of filming finally arose in early May of 2021, when the masks and distance were abandoned, the sheer exhilaration of the dancers being able to freely move and touch again was palpable," says Kim Brandstrup. "It was the first time Alina and Matthew had ever danced together and the chemistry was instantaneous-the liberating sense of close physical proximity and touch were unmistakable and very moving. Emily Dickinson's solitary life was a clear and personal choice and the film celebrates her poetry's powerful ability to evoke the physical world outside the room-a celebration of our ability to conjure up, through poetry, music, movement, an imaginary otherness even when we are alone in our rooms."

Between the Rooms is commissioned by LA Opera and is generously supported by a consortium of donors to LA Opera's Contemporary Opera Initiative, chaired by Nancy and Barry Sanders. The film was originally set to premiere December 10, 2021.

Presented through LA Opera's On Now digital platform, the Digital Shorts series brings cutting-edge opera to audiences worldwide. Between the Rooms is the 11th film in the notably diverse series, which launched in December 2020. The three films released in the 2021-22 season tackle themes relevant to our times: the mass incarceration of Black men (The First Bluebird of the Morning, released in September 2021), social justice (We Hold These Truths, March 2022) and isolation (Between the Rooms). Films in the series have subsequently won awards at international film festivals and have been televised on TCM. All of the films in the series can be viewed at LAOpera.org/DigitalShorts.

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Between the Rooms

Friday, May 13, 2022 at 11:00am PST
Link: https://www.laopera.org/performances/upcoming-digital-performances/between-the-rooms/

Anna Clyne, composer
Kim Brandstrup, director/choreographer
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
Joélle Harvey, soprano
Alina Cojocaru, dancer
Matthew Ball, dancer
The Knights
Eric Jacobsen, violin
Kristi Helberg, violin
Mario Gotoh, viola
Caitlin Sullivan, cello
Logan Coale, bass

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