Barcelona, map of shadows
Music by Mikael Karlsson
Libretto and Stage Direction 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.
American Opera Projects (AOP) is a non-profit organization based in Fort Greene, Brooklyn whose mission is to develop and present new and innovative works of lyric theater, provide resources and opportunities to emerging and established artists, and engage contemporary communities in a transformative operatic experience. American Opera Projects is an unending experiment in storytelling with the central premise that each life is an operatic story waiting to be told, each telling of that story an operatic experience waiting to happen.
Mabou Mines is a collaborative hub for diverse, avant-garde theater artists. Our mission is to generate, support, and connect audiences with original works of experimental performance and inventive re-imaginings of the classics, while nurturing the next generations of innovative theater artists. Mabou Mines’ creative vision is informed by the ethos of our co-founders: JoAnne Akalaitis, Lee Breuer, Philip Glass, Ruth Maleczech, and David Warrilow. Fifty-one years later, the company remains committed to collaboration and providing a platform for work that interrogates, innovates, and represents a multiplicity of identities and experiences. Company members include Co-Artistic Directors Mallory Catlett, Karen Kandel, Carl Hancock Rux; Associate Artists Tei Blow, Perel, David Thomson, Carrie Mae Weems and Senior Artistic Associates JoAnne Akalaitis, Clove Galilee, Philip Glass, Greg Mehrten, Maude Mitchell, David Neumann, Bill Raymond & Sharon Ann Fogarty. Writer in Residence/Co-Artistic Director Emeritus Terry O’Reilly.
Mabou Mines’ BARCELONA, MAP OF SHADOWS Page: https://www.maboumines.org/production/barcelona-map-of-shadows/
Mikael Karlsson
Composer
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.
Mallory Catlett
Librettist / Stage Director
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).
Production TEAM
Rebekah Heller
Conductor
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.
Bill Morrison
Video Designer
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.
Jim Findlay
Scenic 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.
PERFORMERS
Patricia Schuman
Soprano
Patricia Schuman began her career as a mezzo-soprano singing Rossini and Mozart roles, as well as her signature role at that time,Carmen. Engaged by Peter Brook to perform the title role in his production of La Tragedie de Carmen, Miss Schuman sang in Paris, on a world tour, and at the Lincoln Center Theater.
After switching to soprano on the advice of Marilyn Horne, Schuman enjoyed a career at the highest international level, specializing in the Mozartean repertoire, singing Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Contessa Almaviva in Le nozzle di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera with James Levine conducting; Ilia in Idomeneo at La Scala with Riccardo Muti; and Ilia and Pamina at Vienna State Opera, led by Nikolaus Harnencourt. She made her debut at the Salzburg Festival as Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito, to great critical and popular acclaim. She repeated the role at Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Madrid, and Lyon.
Hailed by critics for her "soaring voice, immensely expressive and phrasing thoughtfully shaped, giving her character unusual strength and conviction, as well as the requisite quality of vulnerability," Miss Schuman has continually expanded her repertoire, debuting the role of Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff at the Covent Garden with Bernard Haitink conducting; Rezia in Weber’s Oberon with Marc Minkowski at the Flemish Opera; the title role in Schumann’s Genoveva with the Edinburgh Festival and Opera North; Blanche in Poulenc’s Les Dialogues des Carmelites with Rome Opera and Seattle Opera; Madeleine in Strauss’ Capriccio in Toulouse and Marshallin in Der Rosenkavalier at Pittsburgh Opera. She has sung the Puccini roles Liu in Turandot and Mimi in La Boheme in Zurich; Poppea in Cologne and Bologna; and the role of The Commander in the world premiere of Philip Glass’ The Voyage at the Metropolitan Opera.
Damian Norfleet
Baritone
Interdiscplinary performer-composer-improviser Damian Norfleet “is a gifted improvisational singer, performance artist, actor, and social justice activist who has occupied a rare multi-dimensional space in the performing arts” (I Care If You Listen). Norfleet “brings a full range of emotions” (Boston Globe) and “commands both stage and screen with a strong presence and powerful singing” (EDGE).
Damian, a baritone contemporary vocalist, has performed at Lincoln Center, Roulette, National Sawdust, New York Society for Ethical Culture, Kaufman Music Center, The Times Center, Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin, Reid Hall in Paris, and multiple Off-Broadway theaters. Damian’s compositions have been performed at fun spaces like the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, Newark Museum of Art, Brooklyn Public Library/Central Library, and The Center at West Park. He is a Music & Composition Fellow at the Montalvo Art Center’s Lucas Artists Residency Program, a 2024 Composing Fellow in the Gabriela Ortiz Composition Studio, and is currently creating an concept album [kiç] written in a constructed language and his first experimental opera Rajanir—a monodrama for voice and open instrumentation.
Norfleet has conducted a sound/movement masterclass at Bennington College and a vocal health seminar for the performers at Hong Kong Disneyland. Additionally, he has workshopped the libretto of an opera about African American folktales with the John Duffy Institute for New Opera, directed an opera about the New York City Police Department’s controversial “Stop-and-Frisk” policy with American Opera Projects, and worked with students at the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU|Tisch on the creation of new musicals and operas. He’s co-curated concerts Young, Gifted, and Black (performed alongside the Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of contemporary art by African American artists), and Love in Times of Alienation with the Concerts in the Heights ensemble, both presented at New York’s Lehman Art Gallery.
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. Rebekah Heller was partially supported by OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors, generously funded by the Marineau Family Foundation.
Premiere TBA at NYU Skirball Center, produced by American Opera Projects & Mabou Mines
Roles 5 singers (3 sopranos, 1 countertenor, 1 baritone)
Instrumentation International Contemporary Ensemble