American opera and its institutions are experiencing an identity crisis. Nowhere is this clearer than in Tazewell Thompson and Jeanine Tesori’s Blue.
Heartbeat Opera knows how to party.
Originally scheduled for a D.C. premiere in spring 2020 but thwarted by the pandemic, Washington National Opera was finally able to present composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Tazewell Thompson’s Blue at the Kennedy Center last Saturday.
The Glimmerglass Festival premiered a searing examination of race, identity, and the fraught relationship between communities of color and law enforcement. Blue, with a score by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by Tazewell Thompson.
Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative, now in its 5th year, keeps the opera flame alight at the Kennedy Center during the long winter stretch between mainstage WNO productions.
Well, that didn’t last long.
WNO premiered Better Gods, an hour-long work by composer Luna Pearl Woolf and librettist Caitlin Vincent on Friday evening.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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