Joyce DiDonato Channels Emily Dickinson, in Interactive Package

Almost exactly two years ago, famed mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato appeared at The Granada Theatre in one of her various unorthodox projects, EDEN. We knew we were in for something different this way came, as we were handed seed-embedded paper discs, tied to the project’s theme of regeneration and gardens, actual and symbolic. Her musical menu, lighting, and staging touched on the music she is known for on the opera stage, by Handel and Gluck, but wended through Charles Ives and Mahler, and the sounds from living composers such as Rachel Portman. It was anything but a garden variety recital.

On Thursday, February 5, she returns to the Granada in another tradition-challenging role, with a production of Emily – No Prisoner Be by composer Kevin Puts — whose Virginia Woolf–based opera The Hours featured DiDonato. In this program, hosted by UCSB Arts & Lectures, she will be joined by the innovative Time for Three and also featuring stage direction and interactive links to the audience.

From all appearances and reports, the show will present Emily Dickinson in a new and reconsidered light, for a contemporary sensibility. The fruits of the effort, at least in musical form, are also available for all to hear on a newly released album.

We checked in with DiDonato recently to get an update on her latest labor of love and music:

I, and the community, were impressed with your EDEN project, performed at the Granada in 2023. I still have the seed disc as a memento. I also remember your fine recital in that space back in 2018. You travel the world, but do you have any special connection or feeling for Santa Barbara?

I wish I could call it home. I have a dear friend, Eva Haller, who is a longtime supporter of the UCSB Arts & Lectures Series, hosting a very special masterclass for me when I was last there. Happily, Santa Barbara will always be associated with her in my heart.

But I also still carry the wonderful meeting with the SING! Children’s Choir while I was there for Eden — I can still hear their voices. Those encounters live forever in my heart and make me feel incredibly grateful for the chance to return to this gorgeous venue. Now, any tour I do truly won’t feel complete without a stop in Santa Barbara.

The Emily – No Prisoner Be production sounds fascinating, and another one of your conceptual and cross-discipline projects. Can you tell me about its origins and intentions?

This idea belongs entirely to Kevin Puts, who approached me while I was singing Virginia Woolf in his opera The Hours at the Metropolitan Opera. He had come across a poem of Emily Dickinson’s, “They Shut Me Up in Prose,” and he immediately began to hear music and dream of my singing it alongside the incredible trio, Time For Three. He heard it all, dreamt it all up, and then happily invited us to collaborate and help shape the direction of the piece. While this is a project I would have jumped at under any circumstance, the fact that it aligns so well with my previous two world tours is something very powerful to me.

During In War & Peace, I spoke about the beautiful quote from Jonathan Larson, “The opposite of war is not peace, it is creation.” With this project around Emily Dickinson’s poetry and her solitary life, we are given an extraordinary example of a woman who created profusely for its own sake: not to go viral, not to be published, not to be famous — simply to navigate a very complicated world. I think with the advent of AI and rabid digital demands on society, the opportunity to take pen to paper and create from one’s heart and mind and soul is a deeply worthy theme to shine a light on.

Emily Dickinson was such an iconic, and enigmatic, American hero — in hiding, in a way. How do you view her place in the pantheon of American poetry, and art more generally?

Absolutely at the pinnacle. I find her daring, revolutionary, human, fragile, groundbreaking, spiritual, bold, confrontational — and so much more. Her poetry continues to reveal the more you live with it, and I find this to be a pillar of great art. Just the sheer number of times — thousands — her poems have been set to music demonstrates the level of inspiration she provides through her words.

You, of course, played a key role in Kevin Puts’ The Hours, which also mated music and a legendary literary-poetic figure, who happened to be a woman. Do you see a connection between The Hours and Emily – No Prisoners Be, and do you have a special artistic chemistry with Kevin’s work?

Not only do I, but I believe that Kevin feels this connection very strongly, and would also likely include Georgia O’Keeffe in that grouping, as well. There is something about these monumentally creative women — and I would add Camille Claudel to this impressive list — who lived in times where the world actively worked to suppress and limit the contribution of strong women, and yet through very difficult limitations, they managed to make their voice heard throughout history in way that inspires and uplifts us today. I find it deeply inspiring.

Can you tell me about the process and the creative connection in working with Time for Three?

It has been the greatest collaboration imaginable. They are stuck with me calling them my musical spirit animals, because we meet in this glorious space of incredible energy, exacting standards, pure imagination, and risk taking, and all at the service of giving the audience an unforgettable and utterly unique experience. I can’t fully express how deeply I appreciate their “yeah, let’s go for it!” mentality. It energizes me and makes me feel like I am flying.

It’s also always my dream to share the stage with people that not only make me a better musician, but that share the same love for the art and for the audience. They are just my favorite humans.

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See Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano and Time for Three at The Granada Theatre on February 5. bit.ly/4abRrMM.