BLOOD&BREATH

The animals come off of the walls, breathing.

They surround me, silently, then murmuring….

I touch them with my hands

We walk through the cavern chambers as a constellation,

a royal progress under the hill.

Blood and breath,

we know these things together,

hunger, desire, exhaustion, heat, cold, company.

World premiere

OCTOBER 19, 2024

Vatican City, Rome, Italy

This opera explores the life and mystery of animals and the circulation of air and blood in the body through the power of the heart. The geometries of the body as microcosm have answering geometries in the movement of the planets and stars, all revealing the intricate marvel of the natural world as the spiritual world. Through immersion in a multimedia narrative, images and song, an ancient legend of the surrender of Mary Magdalen and Joseph of Arimethia to the elements as they struggled to find themselves after the death of their beloved teacher is told. Casting themselves into the natural world, they rediscover the source of  Creation.

Using a unique mix of classicism and the avant guard, BLOOD&BREATH gives us Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea as they retreated to the caves in the south of France, where Magdalene lived in solitude, experiencing an interior transformation that led her to understand where the love that healed her has gone.