Music by Anne LeBaron
Libretto by Gerd Stern, Ed Rosenfeld, and Anne LeBaron
LSD: Huxley’s Last Trip unveils astonishing relationships among literary, scientific, academic, and political leaders in the early period of psychedelic experimentation. Consequences of Albert Hofmann’s initial synthesis of LSD (personified by a soprano trio: Love, Sex & Death) are first observed in Aldous Huxley’s visionary experience as documented in his book The Doors of Perception. LSD goes on to play a central role in the excesses of the CIA’s top-secret MK-ULTRA project, also influencing Crick and Watson’s shattering discovery of DNA. With Timothy Leary’s assistance, it contributes to the scandalous relationship between Mary Pinchot Meyer and John F. Kennedy. On November 22, 1963, the same day of JFK’s assassination, LSD eases Huxley’s final hours at his home in the Hollywood Hills.
Selected scenes from the prior incarnation, “LSD: The Opera,” were performed at three LA venues in 2015: The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, and the REDCAT. These may be viewed in the Media section.
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