
Prototype Festival 2025 Review: Black Lodge
Composer David T. Little & Librettist Anne Waldman Convey Maximum Emotions in New Production
By Alexandra SvokosFor more than a decade, Beth Morrison Projects‘ Prototype Festival (January 9-19, 2025) has cultivated new ideas in New York City’s opera scene, like an haute couture show – what you see presented may not be what people wear in their everyday life, but it introduces concepts and silhouettes designed to influence the art form. “Black Lodge,” billed as a “live multimedia experience” is a fitting addition, stretching the bounds of audience expectations.
Production Details
“Black Lodge” is essentially an extended music video performed with live musicians, like when silent film theaters had pianists. Instead of a pianist and vaudeville joints, however, one gets to experience a countertenor, string quartet, and metal band in glam rock makeup and costume. The film depicts a man, singer Timur, haunted by a drug bender with a woman that ends in tragedy.
It is inspired by the real-life story of Beats writer William S. Burroughs, who was convicted of killing his wife, which he said was an accident. Unlike Burroughs’ work, which follows episodic meanderings, there is an obvious narrative in “Black Lodge,” even if the details are murky and it’s not told entirely linear. “Black Lodge” features a lyrical libretto by poet Anne Waldman.
Composer David T. Little has enjoyed crossing the boundaries between rock and classical music, and it’s thrilling to hear it work, as it does in this production. With a Mad Max-like urgency, Little’s music conveys the thrills, confusion and guilt of a man’s drug addiction and its consequences. The live band, the Dime Museum, brought the story to life without overpowering it as a pure rock show (ear plugs were also handed out by staff may have helped, too). Drummer Andrew Lessman upped the heart rate with a tight rhythm and fitting flourishes.
The Isaura String Quartet had a more understated role to play in the music, but Little’s composition makes sense about why it needs both a rock band and a string quartet. They played off each other and brought together unexpected, but natural, harmonies. The quartet led a memorable sequence with visuals of the strings performing atop a brook. It was impressive performance magic to experience the live sound matching perfectly in time with the film on the screen.
Illuminating Performances
The most demanding role was for singer Timur, who also acted in the film. Without his singing and acting, the whole construct of “Black Lodge” could easily fall apart. For the approximate 90 minutes, Timur is almost constantly on screen and singing. He ably demonstrated his ability without obvious fear of what he had undertaken, getting the audience to buy into the show along with him. Timur’s voice was moving, his acting expressive, and overall he created an impactful and memorable event.
Special mention must also be made to Jennifer Harrison Newman, who was not a live performer but filled the screen in the film, nicely directed by Michael Joseph McQuilken. Timur’s onscreen character often displayed a neutral face, while Newman’s was full of life and enigmatic energy. Newman made one understand how her character could continue haunting people she interacted with, a regrettably unforgettable figure for Timur’s character.
“Black Lodge” is not the easiest performance to settle into for an audience – it tells an uncomfortable story in an uncomfortable way, alternating between rock and classical music to intentionally create further discomfort, with amnestic, ugly hangover vibes similar to video game Disco Elysium. But as the guitar and bass flared in, I was moved from skeptic to believer. This won’t work for every opera fan checking out a Prototype show, just as it won’t work for every rock fan sitting in assigned seats rather than standing around the pit, but if you’re open to it, it certainly can click.
It reminded me of the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, when metal band Gojira played alongside opera singer Marina Viotti. My thought then, as it is now, was: “You know what? Hell yeah.” Rock and opera have a clear overlap – maximalist sounds conveying emotions at their peaks with technically difficult vocals – even if their respective audiences don’t always like to recognize that. Magic can happen when there’s outreach (see: rock operas like “American Idiot” and “Tommy;” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s film scores; the entire catalogue of Meat Loaf), but more often it’s rock reaching out to opera and classical, rather than the other way around.
Like couture fashion or the writing of the Beat Generation, maybe not everyone will love the genre-cross, maybe it won’t always work, and maybe we won’t ever get used to electric, amped instruments in classical music, but why not enjoy something that sounds beautiful in a different way?
“Black Lodge” is being performed through January 15 at BRIC Arts Media in Brooklyn, New York.