It is not surprising that many people assume Herman Melville wrote his classic novel
Moby-Dick on Nantucket, a small island off the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. It is, after all, the setting for much of the book, home port to the
Pequod and home to many of the story’s most central characters. But in reality, Melville never set foot on the island before
Moby-Dick was published in 1851. He wrote the book at a secluded farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, over 100 miles from the nearest large body of water.
An excerpt from the Berkshire Historical Society explains:
Posted: 10/30/2012 by
The Berkshire Historical Society
As I teach libretto writing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, I’ve been asked what lessons I would draw for my own students from "Heart of a Soldier".
Since my approach to writing has always been structural, I chose three moments in the first act as formal examples of how to adapt and make dramatic a work of journalism, as well as the very structure of the act and the reaction to the opera as a whole.
Posted: 09/30/2011 by
Donna Di Novelli (Librettist, Heart of a Soldier)
Besides reading and re-reading the book
Heart of a Soldier by James B. Stewart, I took inspiration from a variety of other sources. Here are just some of the additional works that lent their weight as I wrote the libretto.
Posted: 09/12/2011 by
Donna Di Novelli (Librettist, Heart of a Soldier)
Today, we presented our annual Opera in the Park concert as a memorial to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus, along with Music Director Nicola Luisotti and four Adler Fellow soloists performed Mozart's Requiem Mass, interspersed with meditational texts read by members of the San Francisco Interfaith Council. Included below are the various readings and prayers which were included in the event.
Posted: 09/11/2011 by
San Francisco Interfaith Council