San Franciso's Opera Parallèle presents the American Premiere of Heart of Darkness by British composer Tarik O’Regan and librettist Tom Phillips in its 2014-15 Season. The chamber opera based on the novel by Joseph Conrad will be performed 1st, 2nd & 3rd of May 2015 at San Francisco’s Z Space.
For detailed information including tickets, performance times and sound clips visit the Opera Parallèle website.

Fiona Maddocks interviews Tom Phillips in his studio for the Spring 2015 issue of RA Magazine. 

It will not have gone unnoticed by those of you who have visited in the past week that the Humument site has undergone a major overhaul and now occupies a dedicated section of this, the artist’s main site. So when we were approached, by Venus Febriculosa - a website concerned with contemporary literature and the art and design of books - about their DESIGN CONTEST 10: A Humument, it seemed like the perfect moment to announce our new Humument content and encourage all our readers to take part in the contest.

The brief is simple. You are invited to create an original visual and/or poetic work using any media or methods using Page 4 of A Human Document as the prima materia for this work.
To read about the contest in full visit Venus Febriculosa and to download the brief click here. The closing date for entries is 26 April 2015 11:00PM GMT. STOP PRESS: THE DEADLINE NOW EXTENDED TO MAY 10TH 2015
The winning entry, chosen by Tom Phillips, will receive a limited edition Humument print. Anyone can gloat on the prizes by visiting the Humument Shop.

Surprised by the quality Bernard Moxham achieved in the Ulysses/Humument book last year, I saw that self-publishing was now the way to make the sort of book that no commercial publisher could or would take on. Even if you only have one client an edition of one is not only feasible but almost laughably cheap to produce.

I made a sketch score of an opera, Irma, in 1969 (finishing it as man first landed on the moon). I always had in mind a full score, making it the operatic equivalent of A Humument whose source it shared. Now, forty five years later, as a cottage industry the Talfourd Press presents Irma in full, 120 pages in colour with libretto material and notated score, plus provocative instructions for director, dramaturge, designer and choreographer.

Since writing the first version I have been much involved with the opera stage as both librettist and designer. Irma in its complete form reflects that experience by providing a recipe book for a stage event; with all the ingredients of traditional opera, dance episodes, drinking chorus, mad scene, erotic enactment, and the many variations on love and death. Pipping La Scala to the post will be the forthcoming world premiere directed by Netia Jones. Details to be announced.