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FULL LSD – Huxley’s Last Trip Selections (Anne LeBaron) Los Angeles 2024 Scott Graff, Audrey Babcock, Anna Schubert, Nelle Anderson
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: LSD - Huxley's Last Trip Selections
- Composer: LeBaron Anne
- Libretto: Ed Rosenfeld, Gerd Stern, Anne LeBaron Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: REDCAT, Los Angeles, California
- Recorded: June 14-15, 2024
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Scott Graff, Audrey Babcock, Anna Schubert, Nelle Anderson, Dominic Delzompo, Todd Strange, Jon Lee Keenan, Maria Elena Altany
- Conductor: Andreas Levisianos
- Orchestra: PARTCH Ensemble
- Stage Director: Daniel Corral
- Costume Designer:
- Lighting Designer: Chu-Hsuan Chang
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Anne LeBaron
- Date Published: 2024
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
“LSD: Huxley’s Last Trip,” an opera with music by Anne LeBaron and a libretto by Gerd Stern, Ed Rosenfeld, and Anne LeBaron, charts the powerful cultural, political, and spiritual forces ignited by Albert Hofmann’s discovery of lysergic acid diethylamide. Represented by three sopranos, the LSD Trio (Love, Sex, and Death) embarks on a journey, encountering a diverse cast of characters influential in science, literature, entertainment, national security, and politics.
The four scenes on this video represent about half of the opera. (For the remaining scenes, see “LSD: The Opera” on this YouTube channel.) Performances took place at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles on June 14-15, 2024.
Scene breakdown:
0:00-8:53 – Scene 1: Huxley’s Last Trip (part 1)
8:54-18:49 – Scene 3: Double Helix; 1st Soliloquy
18:50-33:59 – Scen3 6: Three Lunches; 2nd Soliloquy
34:00-47:30 – Scene 8: Mary Meyer and JFK
Scene descriptions:
Scene 1, Huxley’s Last Trip (part 1). Aldous, on his deathbed, reminisces with his wife Laura.
Scene 3, Double Helix. James Watson and Francis Crick celebrate their discovery of DNA at the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, England, with Crick claiming he envisioned the double helix structure after taking LSD. Aldous Huxley reflects, ‘a twisted example,’ in Soliloquy No. 1.
Scene 6, Three Lunches. The LSD Trio hosts three luncheons, transcending time and space: Albert and Anita Hofmann with Aldous and Laura Huxley at the Hotel Sonnenberg in Switzerland; Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary at the Harvard Faculty Club; Timothy Leary and Marshall McLuhan at the Palm Court in New York’s Plaza Hotel. Aldous Huxley reflects, ‘Finnegan’s Wake,’ in Soliloquy No. 2.
Scene 8. Mary Meyer and JFK: After his lover Mary Meyer gives him a hit of LSD in his White House bedroom, JFK hallucinates that his wife Jackie and Marilyn Monroe have joined their tryst.