MEDIATHEK

The collected works of Billy is the kid is the second part of a two-part music theater project delving into the lives of two icons of the American Wild West : Calamity Jane and Billy the kid.
 The full work is an intimate double portrait, with two composers responding to two pre-existing texts, stripping back urban legend to give a very private view of these figures. The first part is short adaptation for solo soprano by American composer Ben Johnston of the collection of letters Calamity Jane to her Daughter.
 The second sees composer Gavin Bryars works with Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: a collection of prose and poetry. It includes fragments of stories relayed by characters who met or knew Billy the Kid alongside expressive poems from the hand of our hero.
 Gavin Bryars wrote for two voices:a pop singer for the voice of Billy the Kid, and a soprano for a female narrator who also becomes the characters of Sallie Chisum and Angela Dickinson – two women from Billy the Kid’s life.