Malena Dayen is an Argentinian opera director and a Princeton Hodder fellow 22/23. Malena won the Catapult Opera’s competition for innovation in opera for her video of Wallen’s The Silent Twins and directed Teatro Grattacielo’s Fedora and Mefistofele video productions, that were selected to the international festivals of Munich, London and Bali. She directed El Amor Brujo and L’Amico Fritz at LaMama in 2021. As creative director of Bare Opera she directed Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires, Don Giovanni, Heroes of New York and The Late Walk that was inducted into The Library of Congress’ Performing Arts COVID-19 Response Collection. Malena recently directed Firesongs at Chelsea Factory in collaboration with National Sawdust, Romeo et Juliette, Carmen and Frida with Opera Naples and Aida and La Medium with Forth Worth Opera. She is a collaborative artist at Carnegie Hall with the Lullaby Projects and other social justice programs since 2017. Malena co-created The Presence of Odradek, an opera based on Kafka’s The Cares of a Family Man that was presented in live VR online in May 2020 and luzAzul, an opera for babies 0-2 that premiered in June 2023 at Chelsea Factory.
LABA project description: Creating a performance piece with original music that explores the edge between day and night a symbolic representation of conscious/unconscious, sane/insane, reason/intuition.
What comes out only at night? Dreams and revelation.