Due to extreme ongoing COVID concerns, the 2021 spring subscription season has been cancelled. All ticket holders will be notified by email to communicate ticketing options. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly will premiere with The Dallas Opera in the 2022/2023 Season.
View the just-announced 2021/2022 Season of full-scale, grand opera productions here.
Jean-Dominique Bauby is the celebrated editor of ELLE magazine. Husband and father, he’s a major player on the Paris social scene. But his life shatters when a devastating stroke leaves him paralyzed and unable to speak—“locked in” like a diver at the bottom of the sea, who can only watch the world go by as he yearns for bygone pleasures.
“I’m still here!”
But Bauby’s spirit is indomitable, and he invents an alphabet by blinking one eye—“writing” his book with his assistant’s help. And though physically incapacitated, he still has a brilliant mind that can wander and fly like a butterfly, freeing him to travel through time and space where nothing is impossible!
Experience a remarkable operatic journey inspired by the real Jean-Dominique Bauby’s memoir—a European bestseller that inspired an award-winning film at Cannes.
This Dallas Opera world premiere is indebted to the members of the Bauby Family, who provided invaluable support and generously shared their insights and memories.
Joby Talbot, Composer
Stage, screen, ballet, orchestra, and opera—this award-winning multitalented composer does it all! Working with prestigious artists and organizations, including Paul McCartney, The Royal Ballet, Illumination Entertainment, and The Dallas Opera, he composed the shimmering score for Everest, the company’s 2015 world premiere.
Production by Leonard Foglia
90 minutes in length with no intermission.
Sung in English with English Supertitles PG