"The Brightness of Light": KCAI's Trey Hock on Alfred Stieglitz for Lyric Opera KC
08.29.2024
The season opener for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City is based on letters between artists Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz.
Assistant Professor of Animation Trey Hock offered background on Stieglitz - a pioneer of photography.
The season opener for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City is "The Brightness of Light" - which explores the relationship between two creative giants: Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz.
Trey Hock - Assistant Professor of Animation at the Kansas City Art Institute - contributed this background for Lyric Opera KC's blog for deeper insight into Stieglitz and his approach to photography. Read the article by Trey Hock
"The Brightness of Light" is based on letters between Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband, Alfred Stieglitz. Composed by Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Puts, this innovative new work is a love letter of its own, according to a description from the Lyric Opera of Kansas City.
The Brightness of Light:
Like any creative endeavor, marriage is a collaborative work in progress—a journey in which the end isn’t always what we imagined when we started. Against projections of O’Keefe’s floral figments, the letters paint the shifting shape of love over decades.
Alongside Stieglitz’s candid compositions, we sense the fleeting fragility of the moment and our desperation to make it last a little longer. Painting in layers, Puts’s song cycle gives each letter new life, connecting contrasting ways of seeing the world. From the deserts of New Mexico to city streetscapes to roads less traveled in between, we see complementary visions for what life and art could be.