If you’ve ever seen a Gustav Klimt painting, you already know Mizzi. She was Gustav Klimt’s muse for most of his career. In the words of Lacy Rose, “Mizzi represents so many of the women in the paintings whose names and lives are lost to time but whose images are immortalized by the painters - often male painters whose names we still remember. For me, I felt it my duty to help Mizzi reclaim her personhood.”
Lacy's new video is written from Mizzi's perspective inside the painting as Mizzi describes what she sees. Beyond that, it is a story of searching rebirth and fantasy all enthroned in the heart of a real flesh and blood woman. Hope i movement ii |
Lacy rose
COMPOSER
Texas native Lacy Rose is a classically trained vocalist, composer and poet. While living in Austin, she sang regularly with the Texas Early Music Project and Austin Baroque Orchestra in addition to hosting numerous parlor concerts at the Sekrit Theater. Since moving to New York, she has collaborated regularly with choreographer Coco Karol and composers Sxip Shirey, Alaina Ferris and John K. Stone. She has opened for and performed with such eclectic artists as Cocorosie, Baby Dee, Dave Malloy, Amanda Palmer, Jason Webley, and Osso String Quartet. With her string ensemble, The Starling String Quartet, she has performed at the HERE Arts, The Tank, National Sawdust, the Owl Music Parlor, and The McKittrick Hotel (home of 'Sleep No More'). She made her Mostly Mozart Festival debut in the Schubertiade Remix at Lincoln Center alongside members of the International Contemporary Ensemble.
As a composer of neoclassical art songs, Rose regales her audience with tales of magic, myth, tragedy and love. MARIA, her six- part song cycle, explores the inner life and personhood of Gustav Klimt's muses, Maria “Mizzi” Zimmermann and Maria “Ria” Munk. She composed the score for a musical theater adaptation of Dylan Thomas' screenplay, THE DOCTOR AND THE DEVILS, which premiered at Ensemble Studio Theater. As members of the 2019 Mabou Mines Resident Program, Lacy Rose and Dara Malina (Director) adapted Clarice Lispector’s 1964 novella, THE PASSION ACCORDING TO G.H., into a multi-disciplinary opera. Mabou Mines presented two work-in-progress performances of the opera. In addition to her continued work on G.H., Rose is composing LISPECTOR, a song cycle devoted to the author’s glamorous, complicated, and radical life and works. www.Lacyrosemusic.com |
Collaborators

DARA MALINA is a director of theatre, performance, opera and film. She often makes politically-driven, art-forward, collaboratively-created or playwright-driven performance, and reinvents classic works while investigating avant-garde movements through a contemporary feminist lens. In 2019, she began developing an opera adaptation of Clarice Lispector’s THE PASSION ACCORDING TO G.H. with composer Lacy Rose at Mabou Mines’ Resident Artist Program and is continuing development. Her work in opera includes two short opera films: OPHÉLIE and COSÍ (New Ohio’s NYITFF). Recent projects include INFINITE MEAT (New Georges Jam/Dixon Place); MACHINAL (Pace); THE CYMBELINE PROJECT (Rutgers); THIS IS A PROTEST OF WHAT HAPPENED, an Italian Futurism/Fascism examination of the 2016 presidential election; THE POST-STRUCTURALIST UTOPIA: NOW, WITH CATS!, a 6-hour performance where people were cats; and WILL THEY PLAY GOLF ON MARS?, an investigation of Mars, colonization, billionaires, utopia, and narcissism. Dedicated to playwrights writing towards their wildest fantasies and strangest truths, Dara has collaborated with emerging writers at venues across NYC. MFA, Columbia University. Member: Ensemble Studio Theatre, New Georges Jam, Commitment Experiment. daramalina.com

COCO KAROL is a NY-based dancer/choreographer/ artist who makes cross-disciplinary performances that invite conversations between personal and shared experience. A performer, choreographer, hospice volunteer, and dedicated teacher, Coco is interested in how we create meaning and connect to others. For her, dance joins poetic and physical experience. She holds a BFA from Tisch Dance NYU and an MFA from Hollins University.
Among the choreographers he has danced for are Chris Elam/ Misnomer Dance Theater, Cherylyn Lavagnino/ CLD, and Christopher Williams. Her choreography has been toured internationally and premiered in reputable New York venues such as Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Galapagos, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, and been curated by AUNTS. She has worked with musicians including Bjork, Amanda Palmer, Ryan Lott, Sugar Vendil, Minna Choi/ MagikMagik, Lacy Rose, Alaina Ferris, and Inhyun Kim/ Ear to Mind; visual artists including Steven Sebring, Eve Bailey, Marcos Zotes, Benjamin Heller, and C. Finley.
She teaches various dance and embodied inquiry techniques that she developed including Movement Before Dialogue workshops such as, Gestures of Care, a movement and storytelling series for end-of-life care professionals. Current works include, ‘Movement Interviews’ (dance as inquiry), The Lullaby Project (oral histories/ physical archives), and community-inclusive choral performances with her artistic partner and husband, Sxip Shirey.
Among the choreographers he has danced for are Chris Elam/ Misnomer Dance Theater, Cherylyn Lavagnino/ CLD, and Christopher Williams. Her choreography has been toured internationally and premiered in reputable New York venues such as Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Galapagos, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, and been curated by AUNTS. She has worked with musicians including Bjork, Amanda Palmer, Ryan Lott, Sugar Vendil, Minna Choi/ MagikMagik, Lacy Rose, Alaina Ferris, and Inhyun Kim/ Ear to Mind; visual artists including Steven Sebring, Eve Bailey, Marcos Zotes, Benjamin Heller, and C. Finley.
She teaches various dance and embodied inquiry techniques that she developed including Movement Before Dialogue workshops such as, Gestures of Care, a movement and storytelling series for end-of-life care professionals. Current works include, ‘Movement Interviews’ (dance as inquiry), The Lullaby Project (oral histories/ physical archives), and community-inclusive choral performances with her artistic partner and husband, Sxip Shirey.

CHRISTOPHER METZGER is a Brooklyn based designer working in all facets of live performance, film, and television.
Recent projects include: Sweat (Public Theater, Moblie Unit National Tour), Little Gem (Irish Repertory Theatre), Suor Angelica and Der Kaiser von Atlantis (Montclair State University, Cali School of Music), La Traviata (Philharmonia of New York), Harlequin & Pantalone, with Bill Irwin and The Dorrance Dance Company, West Side Story (Sioux City Symphony). He is an Associate Artist with Wheelhouse Theater Company. Productions include: LIFE SUCKS. (2020 Best New Play, Off-Broadway Alliance), Happy Birthday, Wanda June. As resident costume designer for the Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance Company. His work has been seen around the world including; The DiMenna Center for Classical Musci, Beijing International Contemporary Dance Festival, Indianapolis City Ballet, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, American Dance Guild, and Danspace Project. Christopher’s designs for, Ru, were featured in the September 2014 issue of Dance Teacher Magazine.His work in film and television include serving as the Costume Design Coordinator for Apple TV’s, Dickinson - Season 2; and CDC for Warner Bros., The Many Saints of Newark. Member Local USA 829. MFA, NYU. http://www.christophermetzgerdesign.com/
Recent projects include: Sweat (Public Theater, Moblie Unit National Tour), Little Gem (Irish Repertory Theatre), Suor Angelica and Der Kaiser von Atlantis (Montclair State University, Cali School of Music), La Traviata (Philharmonia of New York), Harlequin & Pantalone, with Bill Irwin and The Dorrance Dance Company, West Side Story (Sioux City Symphony). He is an Associate Artist with Wheelhouse Theater Company. Productions include: LIFE SUCKS. (2020 Best New Play, Off-Broadway Alliance), Happy Birthday, Wanda June. As resident costume designer for the Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance Company. His work has been seen around the world including; The DiMenna Center for Classical Musci, Beijing International Contemporary Dance Festival, Indianapolis City Ballet, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, American Dance Guild, and Danspace Project. Christopher’s designs for, Ru, were featured in the September 2014 issue of Dance Teacher Magazine.His work in film and television include serving as the Costume Design Coordinator for Apple TV’s, Dickinson - Season 2; and CDC for Warner Bros., The Many Saints of Newark. Member Local USA 829. MFA, NYU. http://www.christophermetzgerdesign.com/
Production Credits
Director Of Photography, Elizabeth Van Os
Line Producer, Caroline Miller Costume Designer, Christopher Metzger Makeup Designer, Leona Ross Choreographer, Alexis Silver Production Design, Jonathan Randell Silver Editor, Elizabeth Van Os |
Audio Produced By Ryan Streber At Octaven Audio
John Albert Harris, Piano Theresa Salomon, Violin Maureen Murchie, Violin Ron Lawrence, Viola Stephan Moran, Cello John K. Stone, String Arrangements |
The Woman Behind the Muse Maria “Mizzi” Zimmermann (1879-1975) was an artist’s model and romantic partner of Gustav Klimt. In 1887, at 18 years old, she first met Klimt, then 35 years old, in passing on the street, and their professional and romantic relationship began soon afterwards. She posed for many of his paintings as a model, a less “visible” role in the artistic process than Klimt’s wealthier, female portrait subjects, since she often appeared as an unnamed representation. In Klimt’s Schubert at the Piano, a painting commissioned by Greek industrialist Nikolaus Dumba in 1898, we find Mizzi standing at the far left of the canvas, illuminated by candlelight, intently watching Franz Schubert, Klimt’s favorite composer.
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