Just about everything mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato touches turns to gold. The audience at the Folly Theater experienced that in abundance Saturday night as the Harriman-Jewell Series presented DiDonato and the outstanding string trio Time For Three in one of the most compelling performances of the season: Emily – No Prisoner Be.
Emily refers to the iconic American poet Emily Dickinson, a unique and captivating writer whose message resonates with contemporary readers even though much of her poetry was penned during the Civil War. The performance featured a new song cycle setting Dickinson’s works by award-winning composer Kevin Puts.
DiDonato needs little introduction to Kansas City audiences. A native of Prairie Village, KS, she regularly graces the world’s premier opera and concert stages. This includes periodic visits to the Kansas City area, and in fact, this was her twelfth performance on the Harriman-Jewell Series.
Time For Three, making its Harriman-Jewell debut, is a vibrant genre-crushing string trio that happened to win a Grammy Award in 2023 for a recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Graduates of Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, the ensemble includes violinist Charles Yang, violinist/violist Nicolas Kendall and double bass player Ranaan Meyer. In addition to playing classical works, they also perform in a variety of other styles, including bluegrass, rock, jazz and hip-hop.
The third ingredient in this creative triumvirate is composer Puts, a St. Louis native who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for his opera Silent Night. A more recent work, The Hours, was presented by New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2022 and featured DiDonato in the role of Virgina Woolf. It’s also noteworthy that Time For Three’s Grammy Award was a recording of a concerto Puts composed specifically for the trio.
From the very beginning, this was clearly no conventional performance. Before Puts’ music began and before the theater lights were dimmed, DiDonato wandered the stage with pen and paper in hand, touching the drapery placed around the set. Slowly the audience noticed her and hushed with fascination. Then the lights dimmed and the trio entered the stage.
The opening movement of the 70-minute staged song cycle was the poem “They shut me up in Prose,” and this in fact set the musical and literary mood for the evening. With its text referring to a childhood experience of being shut up in a closet (because they liked me ‘still’”), the song metaphorically suggests themes of gender discrimination, repression, and by extension, artistic freedom. The piece opened with tense and furious fiddling by the string players, followed by DiDonato’s glorious singing. She did not sing alone, however, since the trio also sang with very pleasant voices as her “background singers.”
DiDonato did not disappoint listeners throughout the work. She employed a broad palette of tone colors, from bright and light to dark and rich. Her diction was impeccable. But it was her acting and embodiment of the spirit of Emily Dickinson that was gripping throughout the evening. She captured the many moods and facets of the poet’s life and thoughts—her rebellious spirit, her unique and visionary voice, her love of nature, the importance of compassion and kindness, her musings on mortality… the list goes on.
Likewise, the players of Time for Three were striking artistic partners, playing with impressive tone, technical accuracy and sure blend. They played alone for three “Bee scherzos” during the performance, giving DiDonato a brief break from singing. The music was reminiscent of bee sounds, and during the second scherzo, DiDonato, the consummate actress, covered her ears and made a face. The audience laughed out loud.
Several of the songs deserve special mention. “Her face” featured one of the most lyrical melodies of the evening, with a trio member singing a duet with DiDonato with a well-executed falsetto. One of Dickinson’s best-known poems, “If I can stop one heart from breaking” was particularly moving. The trio put down their instruments and sang a wordless version of the hymn “Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming,” by German Renaissance composer Michael Praetorius against DiDonato’s melodic line.
The final number was the title song of the program, “No Prisoner Be.” The short and simple text is “No Prisoner be/Where Liberty/Herself abide with Thee.” (“Herself” was substituted for Dickinson’s original “Himself.”) This was a rollicking end to the program, with all performers singing and playing with all the fervor of a rock concert.
Puts’ score for the work is brilliant, bringing forth a veritable cornucopia of emotions, musical styles and colors. William Reynolds’ and Andrew Staples’ stage and lighting design were also very effective, although when the full lighting was utilized, it did make the poems difficult to read on the projection above the stage.
When the performers returned to the stage to receive applause, DiDonato said to the trio “Welcome to Kansas City. May your relationship with my hometown be long and fruitful.” She then led the ensemble and audience in singing the beginning of the melody of “No Prisoner Be.”
If you were not lucky enough to be in the audience, the new recording of the work was released on Jan. 30 and is available to download or on streaming services.
For more information on remaining performances for the 61st season of the Harriman-Jewell series, visit www.hjseries.org.
Reviewed Feb. 14, 2026
