Donna di Novelli-Opera/Music Theater

Set on the vast plains of the American West, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE is the story of one girl’s struggle with the wildness in her soul. Both girl and land fight against the forces that seek to tame them in this epic story of Western migration. Adapted from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s stories of growing up during the Homesteading frenzy of 1880’s, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE is scheduled to premiere in August 2008 at the esteemed Guthrie Theater of Minneapolis.

Following highly successful presentations at the New York City Opera, the Public Theater’s New Work Now! and a Frederick Loewe Foundation workshop directed by David Herskovits, FLORIDA was presented at Lyric Opera Cleveland, July 2006.

“ DiNovelli’s libretto offers scenes as short and sharp as shards of glass to look at sex, murder, and teen anomie …: aided and abetted by Randall Eng’s crisp, lemony chamber-jazz score.”

--New York City Opera, Mark Adamo, composer-in-residence

“ At the end of their opera, ‘Florida,’ composer Randall Eng and librettist Donna DiNovelli pose the question, ‘Who seduced you?’ The answer must be: Eng and DiNovelli. …DiNovelli's witty libretto explores sexual longing, social injustice and the vagaries of human nature in a series of terse monologues and encounters.”

--Donald Rosenberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Synopsis:

A highly-stylized work, FLORIDA investigates the community response to the murder of Florida's mother. The idiosyncratic script and score takes us from the time preceding the murder to the subsequent courtroom rituals. Throughout the piece, the ordinary life of the eponymous heroine, and the extraordinary events that surround her are at play, along with the vowels that create her, constrain her and potentially free her.

“That America’s most prominent male a capella chorus should produce a project about a composer recalled as a feminist seems improbable. Yet Chanticleer’s music theatre piece on the 12th-century nun and polymath Hildegard von Bingen transcends political concerns to offer pertinent and musically astute aperçus on the nature of spirituality.”

--The Financial Times of London

Synopsis:
Twelve Cardinals meet in Rome to decide whether Hildegard of Bingen should be canonized a saint. Moving from skeptics to believers, they take us through her life, her miracles, and finally, her defiance of Rome. 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.

Presented at Joe’s Pub, as part of the Public Theater’s New Work Now! Festival with Sally Murphy, Darius de Haas, Anastasia Barzee, Jesse Lenant, Aurelia Williams. Begun at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Musical Theater Conference, and further developed at Mabou Mines Suite Resident Artist Program.

Synopsis:

“NO GOD BUT YEARNING looks at the planting of anemones; a bar room toast; an act of eco-terrorism; the naming of a cottage; the elemental cry of an S.O.S.; and calls them all prayer. As the 5 characters transform we witness the similarities between a young teenage docent named Lucy and a powerless Saint; between Guillermo Marconi and a Sailor who names his brethren who have died at sea; between the letter “s” that seduces Marconi to Annie Dillard, the center of a teenage cult; between the taxi driver Hafiz and a fog horn that calls out its warning. The center of the piece is Santa Lucia where the environment of the sea comes alive to take part in a calling home.”

“Part dance, part theater, and all enchantment…a glittery fairy tale for the 21st century. ..

Created by company artistic director Naomi Goldberg and Mark Taper Forum associate artistic director Corey Madden with Playwright Donna DiNovelli adapting the story and text from the Brothers Grimm tale of the same name. Princesses captivated from beginning to end in this 90 minute retelling of female royalty.”

--Los Angeles Times

“Donna DiNovelli 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