Press on Stranger Love:
NY Times "Best Classical Performances of 2023"
SF Chronicle "Best Classical 2023"
“a historic triumph of aspiration and persistence over realistic thinking.” | “What [John] Adams describes as Mattingly’s “spiritual intensity” comes through in every minute of “Stranger Love.” It’s built in massive musical episodes that repeat in hypnotic, almost trancelike structures without losing their kinetic spark. Parts of the score burst with clangorous joy; others slow down to a level of stillness in which only the observer’s breath seems to be relevant.” — Joshua Kosman, "A 6-hour Opera About Love? In L.A., an Improbable Creation Makes its Dazzling Debut," The San Francisco Chronicle
“a singular, tender, euphoric, hypnotic opera" — Zachary Woolfe, "A Six-Hour Opera Goes On For One Euphoric Night Only," The New York Times
"a kind of communal love to the cosmos" | "when something is this special, you can't help but want to tarry a while and linger in the moment." — Joshua Barone, "Stranger Love Reflects the L.A. Philharmonic at its Finest," The New York Times
“transfixing, sublime, and ecstatic.” | “This monumental production, over six beautiful hours, afforded the rare opportunity to get lost in a blissful, radiant world.” — Simon Cohen, "A Dazzling Six-Hour Journey Into the Cosmos," San Francisco Classical Voice
“A milestone piece of music theater, no less, the six-hour opera is conceived in cyclical manner, unfolded in rapturously suspended time, to an astounding effect.” | “a revelatory affair.” | “Profoundly moving and ever communicative, the exquisite harmonic and timbral progression yield to sonic dramaturgy of unusual intensity and vitality.” | “Be it the inexhaustible inspiration of spring, the glistening joy of summer, the dimly-lit canvases of autumn [or] the quasi-static tableaux of winter, the musical score encompasses everything into one life-affirming continuum.” — Jari Kallio, "Pure Vitality: Stranger Love by Dylan Mattingly and Thomas Bartscherer Gets its Rapturous World Premiere at Disney Hall," Adventures in Music
* * *
Dylan Mattingly on the premiere of Stranger Love:
When I was six years old, I knew I wanted to be a composer. I fell in love instantly with the magic of creating music, of altering time and experience, of forming worlds from nothing, and from that moment I had spent much of my life on a singular path, trying to build a life which I could spend doing what I loved. I went to music school, looked for commissions, did all the things it seemed should be done in order to make a career as a composer in the US. But about ten years ago, I realized that there were artistic experiences I wanted to create which would never be offered to me on that path, no matter how successful I was. I was drawn to wild, crazy, and massive dreams, the sort of huge life-altering music and art that was my absolute favorite thing in the world to experience. That was what I wanted to create, and I dreamed of this piece — Stranger Love — an ecstatic, seemingly-impossible celebration of being alive that lasts forever and ends in the stars. It was a dream that was beyond impractical — the piece is six hours long, has three re-tuned pianos in the orchestra, moves from opera to ballet to light show, and even was imagined to contain a break for everyone to go together to the taco trucks waiting outside. I didn't have the faintest idea how it could ever be brought to life, and I knew that in order to create it at all, I'd have to spend all my time and mental energy focused on it for a ridiculously long time. But I also felt in that moment that I couldn't be an artist and choose not to do the thing that I knew was the best thing I could offer to the world, the most meaningful way I knew how to distill my time and experience on the planet into something to share with others. So about ten years ago, I turned my life fully towards creating Stranger Love and trying to find some miraculous way to bring it into life. For these past ten years, it has been the gravitational force acting on my every minute, and it has been both a profoundly joyous experience and profoundly difficult, immersing me in both a unique happiness of knowing that I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing, and an accompanying inundating anxiety of the fear that I might never be able to truly share it, and that nobody ever asked me to do it. I've experienced in these years an oxymoronic coupling of a strange certainty that Stranger Love would one day find a way into the world, and an inability to believe that it could ever happen. In a strange evolutionary process, slow enough that at times I haven't believed it from the inside, I've found the people who would bring this dream to life, and though I'm frightened to write it, I find myself tilting away from the anxiety of failure towards a surreal acceptance that we'll all be able to share in this together soon, these tiny six hours.
Stranger Love premiered on May 20, 2023 in LA at Disney Hall, commissioned, produced, and presented by the LA Phil, performed by Contemporaneous, conducted by David Bloom, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, with taco trucks outside for dinner between Act I and Act II.
NY Times "Best Classical Performances of 2023"
SF Chronicle "Best Classical 2023"
“a historic triumph of aspiration and persistence over realistic thinking.” | “What [John] Adams describes as Mattingly’s “spiritual intensity” comes through in every minute of “Stranger Love.” It’s built in massive musical episodes that repeat in hypnotic, almost trancelike structures without losing their kinetic spark. Parts of the score burst with clangorous joy; others slow down to a level of stillness in which only the observer’s breath seems to be relevant.” — Joshua Kosman, "A 6-hour Opera About Love? In L.A., an Improbable Creation Makes its Dazzling Debut," The San Francisco Chronicle
“a singular, tender, euphoric, hypnotic opera" — Zachary Woolfe, "A Six-Hour Opera Goes On For One Euphoric Night Only," The New York Times
"a kind of communal love to the cosmos" | "when something is this special, you can't help but want to tarry a while and linger in the moment." — Joshua Barone, "Stranger Love Reflects the L.A. Philharmonic at its Finest," The New York Times
“transfixing, sublime, and ecstatic.” | “This monumental production, over six beautiful hours, afforded the rare opportunity to get lost in a blissful, radiant world.” — Simon Cohen, "A Dazzling Six-Hour Journey Into the Cosmos," San Francisco Classical Voice
“A milestone piece of music theater, no less, the six-hour opera is conceived in cyclical manner, unfolded in rapturously suspended time, to an astounding effect.” | “a revelatory affair.” | “Profoundly moving and ever communicative, the exquisite harmonic and timbral progression yield to sonic dramaturgy of unusual intensity and vitality.” | “Be it the inexhaustible inspiration of spring, the glistening joy of summer, the dimly-lit canvases of autumn [or] the quasi-static tableaux of winter, the musical score encompasses everything into one life-affirming continuum.” — Jari Kallio, "Pure Vitality: Stranger Love by Dylan Mattingly and Thomas Bartscherer Gets its Rapturous World Premiere at Disney Hall," Adventures in Music
* * *
Dylan Mattingly on the premiere of Stranger Love:
When I was six years old, I knew I wanted to be a composer. I fell in love instantly with the magic of creating music, of altering time and experience, of forming worlds from nothing, and from that moment I had spent much of my life on a singular path, trying to build a life which I could spend doing what I loved. I went to music school, looked for commissions, did all the things it seemed should be done in order to make a career as a composer in the US. But about ten years ago, I realized that there were artistic experiences I wanted to create which would never be offered to me on that path, no matter how successful I was. I was drawn to wild, crazy, and massive dreams, the sort of huge life-altering music and art that was my absolute favorite thing in the world to experience. That was what I wanted to create, and I dreamed of this piece — Stranger Love — an ecstatic, seemingly-impossible celebration of being alive that lasts forever and ends in the stars. It was a dream that was beyond impractical — the piece is six hours long, has three re-tuned pianos in the orchestra, moves from opera to ballet to light show, and even was imagined to contain a break for everyone to go together to the taco trucks waiting outside. I didn't have the faintest idea how it could ever be brought to life, and I knew that in order to create it at all, I'd have to spend all my time and mental energy focused on it for a ridiculously long time. But I also felt in that moment that I couldn't be an artist and choose not to do the thing that I knew was the best thing I could offer to the world, the most meaningful way I knew how to distill my time and experience on the planet into something to share with others. So about ten years ago, I turned my life fully towards creating Stranger Love and trying to find some miraculous way to bring it into life. For these past ten years, it has been the gravitational force acting on my every minute, and it has been both a profoundly joyous experience and profoundly difficult, immersing me in both a unique happiness of knowing that I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing, and an accompanying inundating anxiety of the fear that I might never be able to truly share it, and that nobody ever asked me to do it. I've experienced in these years an oxymoronic coupling of a strange certainty that Stranger Love would one day find a way into the world, and an inability to believe that it could ever happen. In a strange evolutionary process, slow enough that at times I haven't believed it from the inside, I've found the people who would bring this dream to life, and though I'm frightened to write it, I find myself tilting away from the anxiety of failure towards a surreal acceptance that we'll all be able to share in this together soon, these tiny six hours.
Stranger Love premiered on May 20, 2023 in LA at Disney Hall, commissioned, produced, and presented by the LA Phil, performed by Contemporaneous, conducted by David Bloom, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, with taco trucks outside for dinner between Act I and Act II.