Last month, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis created a transformative moment for diversity within their field as they presented the commissioned projects for their inaugural New Works Collective. Still basking in the glow of the experience, last Tuesday OTSL announced the artists and ideas that will comprise the 2024 cohort.
The selected stories that graced the stage at COCA’S Berges Theatre for 2023 reflected people and experiences not commonly associated with the traditional canon of opera. A diverse panel of creative influencers, artists and arts professionals carefully sifted through more than one hundred submissions to select Tre’von Griffith’s Madison Lodge, Simon Tam and Joe X. Jiang’s Slanted: An American Rock Opera and Samiya Bashir and Del’Shawn Taylor’s Cook Shack.
“People shy away from opera because either they don’t see themselves or they don’t necessarily have an entry point,” Griffith said as he was putting the finishing touches on Madison Lodge ahead of its premiere. “I am hoping that someone who has not seen an opera before can find this as an entry point for individuals with a curiosity for exploring the art form.”
With pieces that reflected Asian, African American and LBGTQIA communities and leaned on American musical genres such as jazz, rock, blues, funk, and gospel, 2023 New Works Collective did exactly that.
“What was once invisible is now seen,” said Rejendra Ramoon Maharaj, who directed the stage productions of the 2023 cohort. “This program is the first of its kind to take funding resources to commission an opera, give the decision making to the community that look like the artists and the art makers – holding them up and saying, ‘here is your space.’”
OTSL is still enjoying the momentum of praises for the artistic and audience affirming experience. And this week they announced the selected works for the 2024 cohort. The works include On My Mind by composer Jasmine Barnes and librettist Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton. On My Mind tells the story of Lyric and Melody, who are caregivers during their grandmother’s and mother’s final days.
Mechanisms, by composer J.E. Hernández and librettist Marianna Mott Newirth, explores the life of a neurodivergent child and her inner experience as the outer world attempts to force behavioral conformity upon her, missing the greater insight she has into what humanity is becoming.
Closing out the 2024 New Works Collective is Unbroken, by composer Ronald Maurice and librettist J. Mae Barizo. Set in urban St. Louis, Unbroken chronicles the resilient journey of a single parent and her three sons.
Kimille Howard will serve as stage director for the 2024 New Works Collective productions.
“After a successful inaugural year, we’re elated to embark upon the second year of this fantastic initiative,” said Andrew Jorgensen, General Director. “This year’s cohort is brilliant, thoughtful, and highly collaborative; we’re thrilled to champion the stories they’ll be sharing.
The collective panelists will select three projects each year through 2025 for OTSL to develop, workshop, and premiere.
“We’re grateful to the St. Louis community members who make up the New Works Collective for their time and care in choosing this cohort,” Jorgensen added. “And of course, none of this would be possible without the Mellon Foundation and the Edward Jones Foundation. We remain deeply appreciative of their belief in, and support of, this work.”
These works will also broaden the scope of opera through themes and subject matter that are not commonly formatted for its stage. The struggles Black women are often compelled to keep to themselves while serving as the adhesive for their family units, stereotypes and discrimination faced by the disabled community and the still faced by Black people as a byproduct of slavery and institutional racism are not topics one even conceived to be expressed by way of an art form most associated with wealthy white people. And yet through the New Works Collective, OTSL is creating a gateway to opera for all.
“The hope is that the wave felt through this type of work – work that Opera Theatre Saint Louis is putting the full weight of their brand and resources behind – will continue to create a lightning bolt that will change the reality for BIPOC people in opera,” Maharaj said.
He added that through the New Works Collective – which is the first of its kind for an American opera organization – people of color no longer feel nameless and faceless both as artists and patrons of opera.
“With this work, Opera Theatre is allowing us to say, ‘we are here,’” Maharaj said. “And, that our stories matter.”
For more information on the initiative and 2024 New Works Collective selected works, visit www.experienceopera.org.
