#black opera

In case you have any followers in Cincinnati, OH, I wanted to share that the Cincinnati Opera is premiering a new opera this weekend called Lalovavi that was written by a Black composer (Kevin Day) and librettist (Tifara Brown) and features a predominantly (maybe entirely?) Black cast.

Cool things about this opera:

It's the first in a series of three operas being commissioned and premiered through the Black Opera Project

It's an Afrofuturist opera set in Atlanta 400 years in the future

Parts of the opera are sung in Tut, which is a language that was created by enslaved Black Americans as a mechanism for learning how to read and write when it was illegal for them to do so.

In preparation for the performance, the opera company made sure to hire Black lightwalkers (people who test lighting on stage) to get the lighting right for the actual actors

Anyway I'm stoked about this and want people to know it exists!! Opera tends to be like 50+ years behind every other art form in terms of confronting racism so I'm really excited that this is happening.

Thanks for everything you do - your blog is amazing. <3

Happy Black History Month

Black Opera Singers

Their names are presented below, in chronological order from top to bottom

Marian Anderson 1897-1993

Paul Robeson 1898-1976

Leontyne Price 1927- Still Living

William Warfield 1920-2002

Elizabeth Greenfield 1824-1876

George Shirley 1934- Still Living

Caterina Jaboro 1898-1986

Auditions for a music workshop of @tamar_kali 's new opera "The Swann" - inspired by the life of trailblazing "Queen of Drag" William Dorsey Swann - and a screening/listening session of excerpts this Friday, April 10.

🖼 ✍️🏾reposted from @tamar_kali Submissions for my opera THE SWANN are now live. Use the link in my bio for full details. 

Excited to see who will breathe life into the next iteration of this work alongside music director @danielschlosberg and myself.

Please share with the community! We look forward to hearing your submission.

🖼 5 & ✍️🏾 from @jamesblaszko

A screening + listening session of excerpts from THE SWANN, a chamber opera by @tamar_kali inspired by the life of “queen of drag” William Dorsey Swann, will accompany a Town Hall on the themes of identity, community, and cultural memory.

Panelists include THE SWANN composer @tamar_kali + librettist @carlhancockrux + director @jamesblaszko

Join us as collaborators in this evolution of a queer opera in development!

RSVP through the link in my bio or come as you are 💋

Still an opera singer and a very renowned one, she is also an actress who mostly stares in black and white silent foreign films but slowly being casted in more conventional movies.

Felicia is fair and level headed, despite her emotional wreck of a father. She no longer seeks his love and approval and has grown rather distant from him. She also isn't as bothered by blood anymore and understands that it's part of the family business but she'd rather not just mindlessly kill people and will be fair.

She and Maikel are still exes for sure, honestly. Mostly because she was a Potenza and Salvatore didn't want her to be with him but also because she slowly became more colder and a bit more hardened.

Felicia is still very confident in her abilities, looks, and such as singer but she won't be bragging about it like how most of her family does.

She's still incredibly humble and kind, unlike most of her family, she doesn't mind getting her expensive dress dirty if it means helping someone.

Unlike Amias, she isn't a fighter, she's more of a leader so she isn't really good in a hand-to-hand combat thing but she does still have her Medusa touch so she can turn people into stone at least. Plus, Goshi and Genki make sure she's safe and that she never has to raise a finger to do much.

I don't want her to be a copy of Lisa so the most important thing about them is: Lisa does bad things because she's forced to but Felicia does bad things because that what she must do to keep the Domenica/Potenza name alive. She still cares about her families reputation and doesn't want to endanger it. Yes, she dislikes some of the things her family must do but she accepts it because she is the daughter of a crime lord.