Opera in Dallas, A Weekend in Denton – May 2009

Last Saturday LisaDiane and I loaded Ela into the car and made a road trip to Denton to visit Laura and Jason and to see Laura’s new opera in Dallas. Ela stayed with Laura and Jason, and was well behaved around the cats (although she did knock over that one flowerpot in the living room).

We visited our favorite stops on the square – Beth Marie’s Ice Cream, Jupiter House Coffee, and Recycled Books – and added a new favorite stop: Laura’s new business, Massage on the Square. Laura and her partner Wendy have opened a very comfortable, beautifully appointed studio right next to Recycled Books. LisaDiane blogged about it here, and this was our first chance to see her new space.

The Opera was on Sunday night at the Rosewood Black Box Theater – We saw the “Voices of Change – New Music Ensemble of Dallas” production of “Transformations” by Conrad Susa, adapted from the book by Anne Sexton.

The book is a collection of semi-autobiographical poems Anne built by retelling Grimm’s Fairy Tails in a mental hospital. And it is creeeeeppy.

The opera wraps selected poems taken word-from-word from the original work and brings them to life in music. And it is creeeeeppy too. Here are a couple of scenes from the “Transformations” telling of “Hansel and Gretel”: