Washington National Opera Presents
The 12th Season of American Opera Initiative
with
Three world premiere 20-minute chamber operas
èßäAVTerrace Theater
January 18, 2025
(WASHINGTON)—Washington National Opera (WNO) presents the 12th season of its American Opera Initiative (AOI), a nationally renowned program to commission, develop, and present new American operas, on January 18, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. The three world premieres of 20-minute operas are Tati by Kyle Brenn and Lex Brown, Cry, Wolf by JL Marlor and Clare Fuyuko Bierman, and Mud Girl by Omar Najmi and Christine Evans. The performances will be led by esteemed conductor George Manahan, directed by Chloe Treat, and performed by WNO’s Cafritz Young Artists. Following their world premiere at the Kennedy Center, the three operas will travel to New York City in a co-presentation with the Kaufman Music Center. The January 23 performance will mark AOI’s first appearance in New York City.
AOI was created by Francesca Zambello in her first season as Artistic Director of the Washington National Opera in 2012 to stimulate, enrich, and ensure the future of contemporary American opera by providing talented composers and librettists with year-long mentorships in writing for the stage. This process culminates with the premieres of the operas performed by WNO artists at the Kennedy Center. Over 12 seasons, AOI has commissioned works from rising stars as Carlos Simon, Missy Mazzoli, Royce Vavrek, David Henry Hwang, Nicolás Lell Benavides, Mark Campbell, Damien Geter, Huang Ruo, and Kamala Sankaram, among others. This season’s three composer-librettist teams, under the guidance of composer mentor Gregory Spears and librettist mentor Tracy K. Smith, created three 20-minute chamber operas that explore issues relevant to the world we live in: life in an unsustainable world (Tati), male anxiety (Cry, Wolf), and human beings’ fundamental need for companionship (Mud Girl). They bring a kaleidoscope of experience as both performers and creators in genres including opera, jazz, immersive theater, multimedia art, punk, poetry, science fiction, and more.
“From my own experience as a director, I firmly believe that hands-on learning is the best way to be successful in the opera field,” says Zambello. “This is why I created this program. Together with the program Director Christopher Cano and Artistic Advisor Kelley Rourke, we strive to foster an environment in which composers and librettists who have an interest in writing opera but do not have much experience can gain that knowledge by doing it, from collaborating on libretto and score to workshopping, rehearsing, and presenting the world premiere—all under the guidance of experienced mentors. The results are their own testament to the value of this program: many of the operas we have premiered as part of AOI have been taken up by other companies, and more than half of the teams who gained experience through AOI have continued working together. I am very excited about the three brand-new works we are presenting this season. They demonstrate that opera is an ever-evolving art form.”
ABOUT THE OPERAS
Tati
Music by Kyle Brenn
Libretto by Lex Brown
Maysoon: Viviana Goodwin, soprano
Osvaldo: Sergio Martinez, bass
Connie: Anneliese Klenetsky, soprano
Maysoon, Connie, and Osvaldo are stranded inside a massive, dying, bio-engineered whale named Tati. A project of Connie's disbanded environmental fund, Tati the whale has become an unlikely home. Maysoon is nine months pregnant and due to give birth any minute. When Osvaldo finally spots a boat through Tati’s blowhole, it's a chance to escape. But is it better for Maysoon to give birth in the confinement of Connie’s “miracle whale,” or to risk the outside world, full of both danger and possibility?
Cry, Wolf
Music by JL Marlor
Libretto by Clare Fuyuko Bierman
Austin: Jonathan Patton, baritone
Zach: Nicholas Huff, tenor
Ethan: Sahel Salam, tenor
It's a gorgeous Friday night at UCLA, but instead of going out, Austin and Zach are inside, online, comparing their jawlines to pictures of strangers and trying to become “wolves.” Austin's little brother Ethan is visiting for the weekend and just can’t understand their new obsession. Cry, Wolf explores the ways these young men use love, friendship, and genuine care for one another to push themselves deeper into dark ideological rabbit holes.
Mud Girl
Music by Omar Najmi
Libretto by Christine Evans
Maude: Winona Martin, mezzo-soprano
River: Kresley Figueroa, soprano
Poly 1: Tiffany Choe, soprano
Poly 2: Michelle Mariposa, mezzo-soprano
In a near-future flooded world, Maude and River live beneath a huge broken bridge. Maude, an ex-scientist, wants to protect young River from “poisons from the past”: plastics, AI-infused smart junk, mutating bio-drones. But River is lonely, and she secretly loves plastic: weightless, immortal, forbidden. When River makes her own companion out of mud, junk, and scraps of plastic, Maude is forced to act—but is it too late?
ABOUT THE CREATORS
Kyle Brenn is a New York-based composer and multi-purpose musician whose work spans the worlds of contemporary music, theater, jazz, and pop, often existing between them. He explores theatricality, genre, process-based forms, and nuanced emotional investigation in his practice. Since graduating from NYU in 2020, where he studied with Michael Gordon, his work has been performed at Carnegie Hall, on the Bang on a Can Marathon, and at the Tribeca Film Festival. He frequently can be found orchestrating, music directing, and playing drums around New York City, including recent projects at Ars Nova and the New Ohio Theatre. His debut theatrical concept album the shape of a child is set for release on Cantaloupe Records. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Natalie, and their chihuahua, Mocca. kylebrenn.com
Lex Brown is a multimedia artist who uses poetry and science fiction to create existential narratives about the Information Age. Working fluidly between installation, film, live performance, painting, and sculpture, her work contemplates spiritual experience through humor and satire. Brown has performed and exhibited work at the MIT List Center, New Museum, the High Line, the International Center of Photography, The Kitchen, Celebration Barn Theater, and the Philly Fringe. Her films have been presented at e-flux Screening Room, New York; Transmediale, Berlin; and the East End Film Festival, London. Brown received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University and an MFA from Yale. She was a 2021 United States Artist Fellow and teaches in the Visual Arts Program at Princeton University. She is a 2025 Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. lexbrown.com
JL Marlor is a composer, electric guitarist, and performer living in Brooklyn. She is known for her narrative-driven multi-genre works drawing from the worlds of Riot Grrrl punk and DIY punk, Slavic choral music, plainchant, and American protest music. Last year, she was named a Toulmin Creator in collaboration with National Sawdust and is currently a Composers and the Voice fellow with American Opera Projects. She is a frequent performer in her own works, as an electric guitarist and an indie rock vocalist. Beyond her work as a composer, Marlor fronts her indie rock band Tenderheart Bitches, which was hailed as “arriving on the indie rock scene with something serious to say” by The Wild Honeypie and was listed in Them’s 2021 list of best new songs written by queer artists. Marlor is a founding member of American Composers Orchestra’s genre-defying educational initiative Sonic Spark Lab. jlcomposes.com
Clare Fuyuko Bierman is an award-winning playwright and lyricist raised in a Japanese-Jewish home with some rabbits, a snake, and a bunch of finches. Her writing often involves ecological absurdism, politicized food, campfire stories, made-up games, unexpected sea shanties, and proscenium-less playspaces. Recent works include Yoko’s Husband’s Killer’s Japanese Wife, Gloria (commissioned by 5th Avenue Theatre 2021, Civilians R&D 2022, Orchard Project Performance Lab 2023, O’Neill New Musical Theater Conference 2023, Festival of New Musicals 2023, Vivace Award 2023), and The People vs. American Cheese (American Opera Project 2023). Her immersive works include: VISARE (New Voices winner 2020, Vivace Award Nomination 2021) and [untitled hat project] (New York Foundation for the Arts grant 2021). She has participated in the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Play Festival, and Broadway’s Future Songbook Series. clarebierman.com
Boston-based artist Omar Najmi splits his time between composition and performance, maintaining a busy schedule as an operatic tenor. His current season has included role debuts such as: Valcour in The Anonymous Lover with Boston Lyric Opera, Simon in the world premiere of Adoration with Beth Morrison Projects, Ruggero in La Rondine with Opera on the James, and Alessandro in Il re pastore with Orpheus PDX. Najmi served as the first-ever Emerging Composer in residence with Boston Lyric Opera, where he worked with Boston Youth Poet Laureate Alondra Bobadilla in the creation of the song cycle my name is Alondra. Najmi was a finalist in Atlanta Opera’s 96-Hour Opera Project, where his opera The Portrait—created in collaboration with librettist Catherine Yu—also received its premiere. His most recent opera, Jo Dooba So Paar, was commissioned and presented by White Snake Projects as part of their Let’s Celebrate! initiative. omarnajmi.com
Originally from Australia, Christine Evans writes plays, fiction, essays, and opera libretti. Her novel, Nadia, called “often brutal, sometimes lovely and always humane” by Foreword Reviews, was published in 2023 (University of Iowa Press). Her chamber opera with Sydney-based composer, Andrée Greenwell, Three Marys, was produced by Greenwell’s Green Room Music and premiered as part of the Sydney Opera House UnWrapped series in 2023. Her theater work has been developed and produced at the American Repertory Theater, the Royal Shakespeare Company, HERE Arts (NYC), Playbox Theatre and many other venues in the U.S., U.K., and Australia. Her play Trojan Barbie won the Jane Chambers Award and Playwrights First Plays for the 21st Century Award and is published by Concord Theatricals. She lives in Washington, D.C., where she is a faculty member of the Department of Performing Arts at Georgetown University. christineevanswriter.com
ABOUT THE MENTORS
Gregory Spears (composer mentor) is a New York-based composer whose music has been called “astonishingly beautiful” (The New York Times), “coolly entrancing” (The New Yorker), and “some of the most beautifully unsettling music to appear in recent memory” (The Boston Globe). He has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Santa Fe Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seraphic Fire, The Crossing, Volti, BMI/Concert Artists Guild, Vocal Arts DC, New York Polyphony, The New York International Piano Competition, JACK Quartet, and New York Youth Symphony, among others. HIs 21-movement solo piano cycle, Seven Days, was released in the form of a custom-designed app produced by the 92NY in fall 2021. His latest opera, Castor and Patience, written in collaboration with former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, was commissioned by Cincinnati Opera for their 100th anniversary and premiered in 2022. The opera, nominated for an International Opera Award, was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. Fellow Travelers, written in collaboration with Greg Pierce, premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2016 and was subsequently produced at the Prototype Festival (NYC), Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Minnesota Opera, Madison Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Arizona Opera, Columbus Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, the Seagle Festival, and Florida Grand Opera. It was hailed as “one of the most accomplished new operas I have seen in recent years” (Chicago Tribune) and an opera that “seems assured of lasting appeal” (The New York Times).
Tracy K. Smith (librettist mentor) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, memoirist, editor, translator, and librettist. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States, 2017–2019, during which time she spearheaded American Conversations: Celebrating Poetry in Rural Communities with the Library of Congress, created the American Public Media podcast The Slowdown, and edited the anthology American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time. Smith is the author of five poetry collections: Such Color: New and Selected Poems, which won the 2022 New England Book Award; Wade in the Water, which was awarded the 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; Life on Mars, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize; Duende, winner of the 2006 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets; and The Body’s Question, which received the 2003 Cave Canem Prize. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in nonfiction. Among Smith’s other honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Academy Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, the Harvard Arts Medal, the Columbia Medal for Excellence, a Smithsonian Ingenuity Award, and an Essence Literary Award. She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She is a professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
ABOUT THE AMERICAN OPERA INITIATIVE
The American Opera Initiative is a comprehensive commissioning program founded in January 2012 by Francesca Zambello in her first season as Artistic Director of the Washington National Opera. The Initiative was created to stimulate, enrich, and ensure the future of contemporary American opera by providing talented composers and librettists with mentorship and opportunities to write for the stage.
Since 2012, the American Opera Initiative has commissioned three 20-minute operas each year from composers and librettists selected from across the country. Commissioned works use a chamber ensemble drawn from the WNO Orchestra and singers from WNO’s Cafritz Young Artists Program. Each team of composers and librettists workshops their operas throughout the development cycle at the Kennedy Center and has the invaluable experience of witnessing their work performed on a Kennedy Center stage. The AOI has commissioned works from Nicolás Lell Benavides, Mark Campbell, Jerre Dye, Damien Geter, David Henry Hwang, Huang Ruo, Jens Ibsen, Missy Mazzoli, Rene Orth, Zach Redler, Kamala Sankaram, Sandra Seaton, John de los Santos, Carlos Simon, and Royce Vavrek, among others.
A key element of the American Opera Initiative is connecting the young composers and librettists to professional mentors who have successfully brought new American operas to the stage. Mentors have included composers Anthony Davis, Ricky Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, Laura Kaminsky, John Musto, Kevin Puts, and Carlos Simon; librettists Mark Campbell, Kimberly Reed, Kelley Rourke, and Gene Scheer; and conductors John DeMain, George Manahan, Anne Manson, David Neely, and Steven Osgood. These mentors work closely with WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello and AOI Artistic Advisor Kelley Rourke, who offer detailed feedback and advice to each team.
ABOUT WASHINGTON NATIONAL OPERA
Washington National Opera (WNO) is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. Under the leadership of General Director Timothy O’Leary and world-renowned Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, the company presents a diverse repertory of grand opera across three main venues of the Kennedy Center. From classic operas to contemporary works, each season the WNO’s artistic output also includes commissioned American works and a variety of special concerts, youth operas, and events. Founded in 1956 and an artistic affiliate of the Kennedy Center since 2011, WNO has a storied legacy of more than 100 new productions, over 50 world premieres, international tours, live recordings, and radio broadcasts, digitally streamed content, as well as innovative education and community-engagement programs. Recent celebrated productions have included a new production of Strauss’ Elektra; the D.C. premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s and Tazewell Thompson’s Blue, which was commissioned by Zambello; the world premiere of Written in Stone—composed for the Kennedy Center’s 50th anniversary season; the world premiere of Philip Glass’ reconceived Appomattox, presented in conjunction with cultural events throughout Washington, D.C.; the powerful performances of Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars; and the massive feat of WNO’s first complete Ring Cycle, which was helmed by Zambello and played to sold-out houses following international acclaim. The 2023–2024 season included the world premiere of Grounded by Jeanine Tesori and George Brant, and Turandot with a new ending by Christopher Tin and Susan Soon He Stanton. WNO is committed to expanding opera’s reach and fostering a new generation of opera talent. Among the company’s most successful education and community engagement programs are the American Opera Initiative (AOI), the Cafritz Young Artist Program, the WNO Opera Institute, Opera in the Outfield®, in-person and digital Look-In performances, the Student Dress Rehearsal Program, free pre-concert lectures and post- show Q&As after many shows, the WNO Young Associates program, and the Let’s Go There discussion series.
Funding Credits
Major Support for American Opera Initiative generously provided by Denise Littlefield Sobel
The WNO Season Sponsor is General Dynamics
The Official Airline of the WNO Season is American Airlines
Major support provided by Jacqueline Badger Mars and Mrs. Eugene B. Casey
Additional support provided by Chevron
Ticket Information
Tickets may be purchased online at kennedy-center.org, in person at the Kennedy Center Box Office, or by calling (202) 467-4600.
Media Contacts
David Hsieh
Senior Press Representative, Classical
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
(202) 416 8093
[email protected]
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