Starting tomorrow, the New York-based Experiments in Opera will launch its latest venture: a ten-part video opera series told in 15-minute segments. Each segment is written by a different composer-librettist team. In “Everything for Dawn,” the eponymous heroine spends her critical teenage years coming to terms with her father’s mental illness and eventual suicide, which is further complicated when his paintings become posthumously celebrated as “outsider art.”
As someone whose first work for VAN detailed my relationship to my father’s suicide and its convergence with art and opera, the plot was like catnip for all its personal relevance and meaning. For composer (and fellow VAN contributor) Melissa Dunphy, who teamed up with librettist Krista Knight to write Episode Six, “At the Crack of Dawn,” there was a similar resonance: While she and Knight depict Dawn’s first visit to her father in a mental hospital, Dunphy also drew on her own experiences having a parent in in-patient care.
I recently spoke with Dunphy via Zoom about her contribution to the series, and she immediately jumped into why she said “yes” and why her seemingly random episode assignment hit so close to home.
The Troubled Kids Club
An interview with composer Melissa Dunphy on “Everything for Dawn”
