Barcelona, map of shadows
Music by Mikael Karlsson
Libretto by Mallory Catlett
Based on a play by Lluïsa Cunillé
In collaboration with International Contemporary Ensemble
BARCELONA, MAP OF SHADOWS takes place in a single evening during the radio broadcast of Maria Callas’ 1956 studio recording of La Boheme. The opera within the opera is heard intermittently in 5 scenes in which HE and SHEask their renters – a French teacher, a second-string soccer player turned security guard, and a young Latin American immigrant – to move out so that they can be left alone in the waning days of HE’s terminal illness. In each encounter the contradictions and secret entanglements of their lives are revealed alongside the past and future of their city, haunted by the Spanish Civil War and the erasure of its cultural identity due to globalization. Like the city in which they live, the characters’ identities are not fixed, their shifting subjectivities undo the social codings of high and low class, masculine and feminine, center and margin. Far from being a story of gentrification and nostalgia, it instead transports you to those mysterious, marginal, concealed spaces that exist in the realm of everyday urban life where identity is always elusive.
Mikael Karlsson is a composer who specializes in dramatic music for dance, ballet, opera, theater and for singers, and writes concert music for orchestras, chamber ensembles and solo instrumentalists. His works often make extensive use of live electronics in surround sound multichannel format running parallel with (acoustic) orchestras and ensembles. His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Park Avenue Armory, Lincoln Center, MuTh Konzertsaal, Berwaldhallen, MoMA, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Paris Opera Palais Garnier, Oslo Opera House, Berwaldhallen, the Royal Swedish Opera,Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, at the Nobel Prize Banquet, the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, at the International Edinburgh Festival, the Baltic Sea Festival, and many other opera houses, festivals and concert venues across Europe, Asia, and the US.
Mikael Karlsson
Composer
Mallory Catlett is an Obie award winning creator/director of performance across disciplines; from opera and music theater to plays and installation art. Her works have premiered in New York at Mabou Mines, LaMama, 3LD, HERE, the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, PS122, Abrons Arts Center, The Chocolate Factory, The Collapsable Hole and the Ohio Theatre, and have been featured at the Ice Factory, CultureMart, COIL, Prelude and BAM’s Next Wave Festival. Regionally, her work has been seen at EMPAC (Troy NYC), American Repertory Theater (Cambridge), ASU Gammage (Tempe), DiverseWorks (Houston), Z Space (San Francisco) & Redfern Center (Keene, NH). International touring includes Les Escales improbables (Montreal), Kilkenny Arts Festival (Ireland), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), Dublin Fringe, (Ireland) Exit Festival (Créteil, France), Noorderzon Festival (Groningen, Netherlands), Adelaide Festival (Australia), Brighton Festival and Bristol’s Mayfest (UK) and the PuSh Festival (Canada).
Mallory Catlett
Librettist
Production TEAM
Praised for her “turn-on-a-dime energy” (The New Yorker), conductor Rebekah Heller is an exciting force at the forefront of new music. A regular leader of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Heller’s conducting has been praised as “marvelous” (I Care if You Listen) and “crisp” (S. Florida Classical Review).
Informed by her robust experience as “an impressive solo bassoonist” (The New Yorker), and long-held leadership roles in the renowned International Contemporary Ensemble, Heller’s depth of experience interpreting contemporary music, and building trust with composers, performers, and audiences alike, translates into a thrilling presence on the podium.
Heller conducts the Mannes Wind Orchestra and has led the New World Symphony, The Harlem Chamber Players, the Oberlin Sinfonietta and Contemporary Music Ensemble, The Helsinki Metropolitan Orchestra and others.
Early 2026 highlights include appearances on the podium with International Contemporary Ensemble, in recording sessions with multiple composers, and back at the Oberlin Conservatory for a week of new music.
Rebekah Heller
Conductor
Bill Morrison is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker who has been called “the poet laureate of lost films” (New York Times, 9/21/2021). He has premiered feature-length documentary films at the New York, Sundance, Telluride and Venice film festivals. Decasia (2002) was the first film of the 21st century to be named to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) has been listed as one of the best films of the decade (2010s) by the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, and Vanity Fair, among others. His most recent film, Incident (2023) won the Best Short Film Award from International Documentary Association in 2023, the Cinema Eye Honors for Outstanding Nonfiction Short, and was nominated for an Academy Award in Documentary Short in 2025.
Bill Morrison
Video Designer
Jim Findlay works across boundaries as a theater artist, visual artist, and film-maker. His most recent work includes his original performances “Vine of the Dead” (2015), “Dream of the Red Chamber” (2014), “Botanica” (2012) and the direction and design of David Lang‘s “Whisper Opera” as well as the unreleased 3D film “Botanica”. His video installation in collaboration with Ralph Lemon, “Meditation”, is in the permanent collection of the Walker Art Center. He was a founding member of the Collapsable Giraffe and in partnership with Radiohole founded the Collapsable Hole a multi-disciplinary artist led performance venue recently relocated to Manhattan’s West Village. In addition to his work as an independent artist, he maintains a long career as a collaborator with many theater, performance and music artists including Bang on a Can, Daniel Fish, Aaron Landsman, David Lang, Michael Gordon, , Ridge Theater, Ralph Lemon, the Wooster Group, Radiohole, Stew and Heidi Rodewald and Julia Wolfe. His work has been seen at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAM, Arena Stage, A.R.T. and over 50 cities internationally. In 2016 he received a Creative Capital Award for his newest project “Electric Lucifer” and in 2015 he received the Foundation for Contemporary Art Artist Grant. He was a MacDowell Colony Fellow in 2012 and 2016. Other recognition includes two Obie Awards, two Bessie Awards, two Princess Grace Awards, a Lortel and a Hewes Awards and residencies at Baryshnikov Arts Center, UCross, MassMOCA and Mount Tremper Arts.
Jim Findlay
Scenic Designer
Information
Duration 100' / no intermission
Commission Barcelona, Map of Shadows is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
Premiere TBA at NYU Skirball Center
Roles
Instrumentation