Excerpt from Speakeasy, the film component for the opera “The True Last Words of Dutch Schultz,” produced by Opera Centrum Nederland.

A multi-media opera set to William Burroughs’ reading of the surreal dying words of American gangster Dutch Schultz.

Schultz was shot in the men’s bathroom of a Newark bar. As he lay dying from his wounds, the police transcribed his five-hour feverish rant, hoping to find clues to the workings of his criminal network. Instead of clues, they were left with an astonishing spontaneous poetic text. Speakeasy was projected throughout the opera, echoing Burroughs' reading, to create a delirious space for the drama between life and death to unfold.