THE GOOD SWIMMER, a Pop Requiem
Text By Donna Di Novelli
Music by Heidi Rodewald
Directed by Kevin Newbury
A concert version titled, A Lifesaving Manual will tour in 2021.
SYNOPSIS
Part Requiem, part lifesaving drill, The Good Swimmer centers around a family of lifeguards during the early days of the Vietnam War.
A song cycle for a chorus of lifeguards and a rock band premiered at BAM’s 2018 Next Wave Festival to sold-out houses. All lyrics created from ‘found text’. Before the Tet offensive, before troops equalled 385,000 men, before protests exploded across college campuses, there was a good swimmer, who memorized the lifesaving manual.
He had a sister, Antigone.
“..elegant…in the show’s final haunting image, a lifeguard chair, which had been hanging above the ensemble, descends, and the men, back in their lifeguard togs, cluster around it, bathed in the warm glow of Eric Southern’s lighting, and memory.” -WSJ
“exquisite…During a song that began “A typeface called Optima” — the font (I guessed, correctly as it turned out) used on the Vietnam War Memorial — I heard someone in an upper row crying quietly.” -NYT
“The lyrics are all from found texts sourced from a variety of historical resources: defunct life-saving manuals, field guides, weather and tide reports that have been radically re-contextualized by Di Novelli and are surprisingly poetic and potent.” -Broadway World.
From the Prototype Festival:
Text and translations by Donna DiNovelli
Music by Hildegard von Bingen and various composers, including new songs by Steven Stucky, Regis Campo; musical arrangements by Joseph Jennings.
Directed by Francesca Zambello
Commissioned by Chanticleer, San Francisco 2005
Twelve Cardinals meet in Rome to decide whether Hildegard von Bingen should be canonized a saint. Moving from skeptics to believers, they take us through her life, her miracles, and finally, her defiance of Church authorities. The story is theirs: it is a journey of how they come to define and discover what is holy; what is blessed. The structure allows for a variety of music, sometimes medieval, sometimes contemporary, i.e., joyfully anachronistic. As Hildegard’s sanctity is questioned in arenas both sacred and practical so, too, the music reflects worlds of exalted spirituality and profound simplicity.
A prayer cycle by Donna Di Novelli
Music by David Rodwin
Developed at Mabou Mines Suite, performed at Joe’s Pub, 2003
SYNOPSIS
Text by Donna Di Novelli
Choreography by Naomi Goldberg
For the LA Modern Dance and Ballet Company,
Presented at the Ford Amphitheater, 2000
SYNOPSIS
A re-telling of the Grimm’s fairy tale, for a dance company of 12 women ranging in age from 9 to 92. Written in 12 parts, each begins with a song title embracing the rebellious daughters’ late night desires.“Part dance, part theater and all enchantment…captivated from beginning to end in this 90-minute retelling of female royalty who mysteriously wear out their dancing shoes…” -LA Times
Music by Adam Cohen
Performed at Dixon Place, 1998
SYNOPSIS
A contemporary telling of the folk tale, Red Riding Hood, this Red has auburn hair; buys an apple at a bodega; and finds a wolf who can cook one mean apple pie.“Donna Di Novelli wields one clever, lyrical mind, this time providing libretto for a psychologically savvy, fractured fairy tale involving a wolf, grandmother’s lore and the feeling that eating an omelet will get you gobbled – or confine you to a kitchen forever.” –The Village Voice