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‘true pearl’ premieres at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

David Lang’s true pearl: an opera in five tapestries (with libretto by Sybil Kempson), is inspired by Isabella Stewart Gardner’s sixteenth-century tapestries that tell the story of the first king of Persia, Cyrus the Great. The five-part “in-ear opera” is a private experience, available only through headphones in the Museum’s Tapestry Room. The “stage set” for each scene is an individual tapestry from the Cyrus series, and listeners are immediately immersed into tales of empire building and passion…

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love fail – arr. female chorus (2012, rev. 2016) 60'

Text by David Lang (after Lydia Davis, Marie de France, Gottfried von Strassburg, Béroul, Thomas of Britain and Richard Wagner)

SSAA chorus (or 8 solo women singers) playing simple percussion instruments

The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2012 Next Wave Festival, The International Festival of Arts & Ideas, The John F. Kennedy Center Abe Fortas Memorial Fund, The Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, The Wake Forest University / Secrest Artists Series, and Hancher Performances at the University of Iowa

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