Sentinel - A Chamber Opera

Danielle Birrittella’s new chamber opera, SENTINEL, explores themes of isolation, motherhood,  psychedelics, domestic terrorism, and the return to the natural world.

Described as “exposed,  intelligent, and earnest… persuasive and powerful,” by The New York Times, Birrittella teams with the, “unbearably moving” (Gramophone), composer Annika Socolofsky and poet Claressinka Anderson to devise this new work.

Available for co-commissioning opportunities.

Overview

Invoking the timelessness of grief, SENTINEL is set in a future outside of time. Will our heroine leave the lush virtual world of her own construction and risk re-entry into a world she is unable to design? Control and surrender are at the heart of this opera.

Our characters traverse a kaleidoscopic journey through the warm depths of human connection, while facing the brittle cold of profound loss and loneliness. The opera navigates a manufactured digital world, the psychedelic realm, and a natural world rapidly disappearing from humanity’s abuse.

The music of SENTINEL follows our heroine and her beloved on a journey through altered states of consciousness. An accompanying chamber ensemble and choir capture these internal and external sonic landscapes of contrast and contradiction—supporting, fighting, and ultimately guiding them to transformation.