Ofelia's Life-Dream
for vocalist and electronics
Trailer for the Short Film version, produced by Guerilla Opera, directed by Laine Rettmer, and starring Aliana de la Guardia. Premiered Nov.–Dec. 2020 as part of the Guerilla Underground Virtual Speakeasy.
A woman finds herself at a difficult life crossroads, names herself “Ofelia” and embarks on a poetic inner journey. Dreaming that she is drowning, she contemplates biological cycles of life and death, embodying three organisms along the way: a tropical bioluminescent fungi, a moth that drinks the tears of sleeping birds, and a giant palm tree that fruits once in hundred years, then collapses upon itself and dies. The use of the name “Ofelia,” an altered spelling of “Ophelia,” hints at Shakespeare's character, challenging the trope of the drowning "madwoman".