Dust Bowl
Feb. 23 - Feb. 25
Anthony J. Maglione’s acclaimed music, which played to sold-out audiences during its world premiere in 2020, triumphantly returns to Dallas. The originally-crafted work, which was hailed by Dallas critics as “breathtaking” and “unlike anything else in our city,” features first-hand accounts of survivors of the Dust Bowl with additional newspaper articles and diary entries. In collaboration with bluegrass band, video projection, and choreographed movement, Verdigris Ensemble brings Dust Bowl back to Dallas and asks the question: how did this happen and have we learned from our mistakes?
Sung in: English
Subtitles in: English
Runtime: 55 minutes
No Intermission
Concerts are immediately followed by a reception.
A portion of every ticket will be donated to the Texas Trees Foundation
A man-made environmental disaster, the Dust Bowl began in 1931 and lasted for almost a decade, displacing entire populations in the southern plains region of the United States. Constant droughts, bug infestations, and increasingly dangerous living conditions left farmers with one guarantee: dust. "Dust to eat and dust to breathe and dust to drink. Dust in the beds and in the flour bin, on dishes and walls and windows, in hair and eyes and ears and teeth and throats.”
Setting texts exclusively from newspaper articles, diaries, and first-hand oral accounts of survivors, the Dust Bowl pieces together nearly a decade of human struggle, hopefulness, and perseverance in the face of constant catastrophe. From fatal dust pneumonia to plagues of jackrabbits and grasshoppers, the performances of the Dust Bowl are honest and raw
Setting texts exclusively from newspaper articles, diaries, and first-hand oral accounts of survivors, the Dust Bowl pieces together nearly a decade of human struggle, hopefulness, and perseverance in the face of constant catastrophe. From fatal dust pneumonia to plagues of jackrabbits and grasshoppers, the performances of the Dust Bowl are honest and raw
Synopsis
Program
Run Time: 55 minutes
Part 1: Promise
Chorus: Dust To Eat
Accompagnato: The Seeds of Destruction
Aria and Chorus: No Man’s Land
Recitative: If The Farmers
Chorus: Trouble Ahead
Accompagnato: As the Drought
Chorus: A Tribute To Dust Storms
Aria: Dust Deniers
Aria and Chorus: The Ballad of Tex Thornton
Part 2: Peril
Chorale: Dust to Breathe
Chorus: Rabbit Roundup
Recitative: No amount of Optimism
Chorus: Black Sunday
Aria and Chorus: Nothing’s Right With The World
Chorale: Dust To Drink
Part 3: Prophecy
Accompagnato: A Terrible Failure
Aria: If it Rains
Chorus: Eternal Dust
Recitative: Have We Learned?
Chorus: Reaping the Dream
Chorus: Dust to Eat (reprise)