Lyric Opera 2024-2025 Issue 5 - Blue

27 | Lyric Opera of Chicago the time, and how can we use art to speak and ask the question?” Writing his first libretto, Thompson carried years of experience from spoken theater as an award- winning playwright and director, along with his deep knowledge as an opera director. Thompson’s new opera, Jubilee , recently premiered at Seattle Opera. Tesori speaks of her role as a white woman collaborating with a Black man in this work about police violence in today’s political climate, “For me, Tazewell has the underlying rights to this story because it is so connected to his experience in the world… . That to me is what reparations look like. It is to acknowledge that that story does not belong to me. I participate, but Tazewell has the underlying rights. That acknowledgment is really important.” She moves thoughtfully in these spaces, joining this conversation with energy and “with a lot of humility.” Sometimes, she says, “I feel scared, I feel uncomfortable — but I don’t feel like exiting. And that staying in, to me, is the invitation to be in specific dialogue.” She continues, “I know that it is my responsibility to go deep or don’t go. So, if I’m going to be writing in a community, I better know as much as I can possibly know, without truly knowing with a big ‘K’. Otherwise, I should stay out.” The musical language and style of Blue reflect a deep contemporaneousness. The dramatic pacing expands and unfolds in a way that comes alive and is enriched by the vast architectural acoustics of the opera house yet also has a profound intimacy, the direct impact of watching the conversation up close. Narrative and musical themes recur not just as quick references, but as embedded tropes that weave sections of the opera together. The first half of the opera opens up in scene one with The Mother and her three Girlfriends. These women feel like people one might know, as they chide, trade jovial banter, and, when necessary, express their apprehension with drop-dead seriousness. At the end of the scene, despite their concerns about the difficulty of keeping a Black boy safe in today’s America, they pledge unwavering support and love. In the middle of this opening exposition, we get to know The Mother in her aria “Go Figure,” which gets to the core of who these women are. She has fallen for a man with “big hands,” a “big heart,” “big ideas,” and a “big love” that makes her pause. She stops in her tracks when she says, almost as an afterthought as though she still cannot really believe it, “Go figure.” The pause and falling major third in the orchestra that opens this aria The Father,here with his fellow policemen, is a so-called“Black in blue.” Karli Cadel - The Glimmerglass Festival