Dana Kaufman ’12’s A Cappella Pop Opera About Emily Dickinson Explores Queerness, Feminism and Forbidden Love | Amherst College(https://www.amherst.edu)
Dana Kaufman ’12’s A Cappella Pop Opera About Emily Dickinson Explores Queerness, Feminism and Forbidden Love | Amherst College(https://www.amherst.edu)
Dana Kaufman ’12’s A Cappella Pop Opera About Emily Dickinson Explores Queerness, Feminism and Forbidden Love
Kaufman, an assistant professor of music composition at the University of California, Riverside, wrote Emily & Sue as part of Amherst College’s Bicentennial. Incorporating “pop, folk, musical theater, madrigals, and Sacred Harp influences,” the opera is based on evidence that the poet may have had a love affair with sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson.
“Emily & Sue debuted for a live audience in June [2022] at Amherst College,” writes Julia Woock. “The album with 15 songs was released November 11 and the live New York City premiere of Emily & Sue was at the National Opera Center on November 13. The performance also became a film,” directed by Ron Bashford ’84, associate professor of theater and dance at Amherst. “Kaufman returned to Amherst for a film screening and Q&A, hosted by the Emily Dickinson Museum, on Nov. 30.”
“I think composition is an extraordinarily powerful platform to highlight marginalized identities and stories that have normally been considered taboo,” Kaufman is quoted as saying. “Given how LGBTQ+ rights are being challenged in the states or are non-existent in so many places, this is an opportunity to be an activist through your art, and to give voice to such an important, but little discussed story.”
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