An abstractly colored open mouth
The American Opera Initiative is a comprehensive commissioning program founded in January 2012 by Washington National Opera. The Initiative was created to stimulate, enrich, and ensure the future of contemporary American opera by providing talented emerging 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 the Cafritz Young Artists. 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.
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, 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.
The American Opera Initiative is accepting applications for its 2024-2025 cohort through October 15, 2023. Please see the appropriate application form for more information.
WNO’s acclaimed commissioning program for contemporary American opera enters its eleventh exciting season, showcasing new one-act operas by talented composer-librettist teams.
In January 2024, WNO will premiere the following three new 20-minute operas from talented creative teams.
Composer:
Laura Jobin-Acosta
Librettist:
José Alba Rodríguez
A Way Forward follows a Mexican family of three generations who grapple with polarized ideas on how to save their business from the threat of foreclosure. The stress of the situation brings out hidden family dynamics that reveal both their flaws and passion. Will they be able to get through their crisis?
Eons after humans have gone extinct, a strange, chemically supercharged world remains. Perhaps all a survivor can do is try and navigate their surroundings, one toxic blast at a time. As the environmental legacy of the human species gets heftier, allow a pair of musically inclined polyfluoroalkyl substances and a hardy microorganism to paint a picture of a possible future Earth. Forever is a tragicomic opera about figuring out one’s place on a changing planet.
On the verge of a solitary retirement, wigmaker Esther knows everything there is to know about her craft: you start by laying a lace foundation, then match the client’s hair with a frontal and stitch in the wefts by hand. And yet she doesn’t know how to save her studio, preserve the dying art, or find meaning in her life’s work. But when an eye-catching young stranger shows up unannounced at her door, an unexpected alliance emerges.
WNO’s leading resident-training program cultivates promising young singers and accompanists on the verge of international careers, with many graduates going on to perform in the world’s top opera houses. Throughout their training, the Cafritz Young Artists are featured prominently in WNO performances. For more information, please visit the WNO Cafritz Young Artists page.
Deborah Brevoort writes plays, musicals and operas. She’s best known for her plays The Women of Lockerbie, produced internationally and My Lord, What a Night, produced at Ford’s Theatre and optioned for Broadway. A three-time winner of the Frontiers Competition at Ft. Worth Opera, her operas include: The Knock, with Alexsandra Vrebalov for Glimmerglass Festival and Cincinnati Opera; Murasaki’s Moon, with Michi Wiancko (On-Site Opera, Metropolitan Museum of Art and ALT); Embedded, with Patrick Soluri, (ALT, Ft. Worth and Fargo Moorhead Operas); Steal a Pencil for Me, with Gerald Cohen (Opera Colorado); Quamino’s Map with Errollyn Wallen, (Chicago Opera Theater); Dinner 43 with Michael Ching (Decameron Opera Coalition) and new adaptations of Fledermaus and Mozart’s Impresario for Anchorage Opera. She’s an alum of ALT’s Composer Librettist Development program. She teaches at Columbia University and NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and serves as a mentor to the NBO Musical Theatre Initiative in Nairobi, Kenya. www.deborahbrevoort.com
Praised as “one of the most exciting opera composers in the country” (The Washington Post), Kamala Sankaram moves freely between the worlds of experimental music and contemporary opera. Recent commissions include works for the Glimmerglass Festival (where she was the 2022 Composer-in-Residence), Washington National Opera, the PROTOTYPE Festival, and Creative Time, among others. Kamala is known for her operas fusing Indian classical music with the operatic form, including Thumbprint, A Rose, Monkey and Francine in the City of Tigers, and the Jungle Book. Also known for her work pushing the boundaries of the operatic form, recent works include The Last Stand, a 10-hour opera created for the trees of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, Looking at You, a techno-noir featuring live datamining of the audience, all decisions will be made by consensus, a short absurdist opera performed live over Zoom, and The Parksville Murders, the world’s first virtual reality opera. www.kamalasankaram.com
David Bloom is a conductor equally at home in orchestral repertoire, opera, and new music, leading “ferocious and focused” (New York Times) performances lauded for their “rhythmic precision and dynamic forward motion” (Wall Street Journal). He is Co-Artistic Director of both Contemporaneous and Present Music, Artistic Director of Queer Urban Orchestra, and Principal Conductor of the orchestras at NYU. In such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, MoMA, and Park Avenue Armory, Bloom has worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Jacaranda, Kronos Quartet, The Crossing, Dashon Burton, David Byrne, Helga Davis, Isabel Leonard, Hila Plitmann, and Dawn Upshaw, among others. He has led productions for Opera Omaha, Beth Morrison Projects, Tri-Cities Opera, PROTOTYPE, Teatro Grattacielo, Experiments in Opera, and more. He has conducted over 400 world premieres, including Raven Chacon’s Voiceless Mass, which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize. davidbloomconductor.com
Laura Jobin-Acosta is a multi-cultural composer/soprano with a focus on vocal music. In addition to the American Opera Initiative, recent accomplishments include OPERA America IDEA Resident Composer at the National Opera Center, 2021-2022 & Finalist in BMP: "Next Gen" as part of Beth Morrison Projects, 2021. Recent commissions from Ensemble Pi, Canterbury Choral Society, Brick Church & Five Boroughs Music Festival. Current opera projects: La Alcaldesa, a full-length opera about Puerto Rico's “Doña Fela”, the first woman to be elected as mayor of a capital city in the Americas, and The Curious Lady of Lyme Regis, about paleontologist Mary Anning. Upcoming performances include Breaking the Barrier: a setting of poems by Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay for choir, soloists, organ and jazz ensemble. As a regular performer of new and classic work, Laura's professional singing experience expands internationally. Her education includes a BM in Classical Voice from Denver University and MM in Classical Composition from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music. She is based in New York City. www.laurajobinacosta.com
Elizabeth Gartman is a composer and soprano currently based between Berlin, Germany and New York City. Her compositions explore the implications of the voice paired with the physical body, process in performance, and active listening and response. Elizabeth’s music has been commissioned by companies such as New Chamber Ballet, the NYC Virtuoso Singers, Beth Morrison Projects, Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Chemie, InfraSound Ensemble, and others. Accolades include being named Runner Up of Beth Morrison Project’s 2022 Next Gen Cycle 2, the William Schuman Prize for Most Outstanding Score in the BMI Student Composer Awards (2021), twice recognition as a finalist in ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Competition (2021, 2019), the Karl Canter Prize for Orchestral Composition (2021), and the Giampaolo Bracali Composition Award (2021), among others. Elizabeth holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Illinois. www.elizabethgartman.com
Composer and pianist Joy Redmond (she/her) was born in California in 1999 and grew up in Yonkers, New York. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School, where she studies with Matthias Pintscher, and where she also earned a bachelor’s in 2021. Currently, Joy’s musical pursuits include composing for concert, stage, and media works, collaborating with other artists as a producer and arranger, and performing on keyboards in a variety of genres. Recent projects include a chamber opera with libretto by Julia Hoch which was commissioned by and premiered at Concordia Conservatory with conductor James Lowe, an orchestra piece for the Juilliard Orchestra, and a choral work for The New York Virtuoso Singers. Joy has been recognized with honors including a Davidson Fellowship, four ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Awards, and a BMI Student Composer Award. Festivals she has participated in include Chamber Music Northwest, the National Youth Orchestra, Chelsea Music Festival, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.
Sam Norman is a lyricist and librettist. With composer Richie Johnsen, he wrote the short opera THREE PENELOPES, which premiered at the Royal College of Music in 2022. His other recent work includes book and lyrics for COME DINE WITH ME: THE MUSICAL, which received an off-West End showing in early 2023, and BLACK HOLES LIKE DONUTS, which premiered in NYC in 2022. As a teenager, Sam authored a book of comic poems, A Teen’s Guide to Modern Manners (Little, Brown), and won the Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry in Translation. His operatic and musical theatre work has been produced and/or developed at venues including the Lincoln Center, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Symphony Space, Hackney Empire, NYU, and the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as on a range of podcasts. He is a graduate of Oxford University and NYU Tisch. www.samuelnorman.com
J
osé Alba Rodríguez was born in 1991 in a small town in Jalisco, Mexico, the second of six children in a Mexican working-class family. He and his family moved to Kennett Square, PA in 2004. José displayed an early interest in literature after reading J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Octavio Paz’s prolific works. He studied marketing at West Chester University and dramatic writing at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study; interned as an editor for L’OFFICIEL; and premiered a song at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in 2022 in collaboration with composer Jaime Lozano. José is a bilingual poet, screenwriter, playwright, librettist, and lyricist. His poetically-charged writings, meticulous eye for imagery, and sharp dialogue, conjure worlds depicting empathetic characters, difficult circumstances, and the dark side of humanity. He is currently pursuing an MFA in the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Melisa Tien is a playwright, lyricist, and librettist invested in making formally unconventional, socially relevant, emotionally evocative work. A resident of New Dramatists, she is co-author of the operas The Big Swim (Asia Society Texas Center/Houston Grand Opera, 2024), Song of the Nightingale (On Site Opera, 2023), The Beehive (University of Northern Iowa, 2023), and Family Heirloom (Experiments in Opera, 2023); co-author of the music-theater works Swell (HERE, 2021), Daylight Saving, and Mary; author of the plays Best Life (JACK, 2022), Yellow Card Red Card (Ice Factory, 2017), The Boyd Show, and Familium Vulgare; co-creator of the podcast/auditory experience Active Listening; and creator of the ongoing theatrical experiences Untitled Landscape and Community Forest. She has been published in the anthology Theater Artists Making Theatre With No Theater (Tripwire Harlot Press, 2020) and the anthology Modern Music for New Singers: 21st Century American Art Songs (2021). BA, UCLA; MFA, Columbia University. www.melisatien.com
Talented creative teams. Powerful stories. All-original opera. WNO’s acclaimed commissioning program for contemporary American opera enters its 11th exciting season—showing how short opera can move and inspire us!
“A Way Forward” follows a Mexican family of three generations who grapple with polarized ideas on how to save their business from the threat of foreclosure. The stress of the situation brings out hidden family dynamics that reveal both their flaws and passion. Will they be able to get through their crisis?
On the verge of a solitary retirement, wigmaker Esther knows everything there is to know about her craft: you start by laying a lace foundation, then match the client’s hair with a frontal and stitch in the wefts by hand. And yet she doesn’t know how to save her studio, preserve the dying art, or find meaning in her life’s work. But when an eye-catching young stranger shows up unannounced at her door, an unexpected alliance emerges.
Eons after humans have gone extinct, a strange, chemically supercharged world remains. Perhaps all a survivor can do is try and navigate their surroundings, one toxic blast at a time. As the environmental legacy of the human species gets heftier, allow a pair of musically inclined polyfluoroalkyl substances and a hardy microorganism to paint a picture of a possible future Earth. Forever is a tragicomic opera about figuring out one’s place on a changing planet.
Generous support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.
Gifts and grants to educational programs at the Kennedy Center are provided by A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation; Annenberg Foundation; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Bank of America; Bender Foundation, Inc.; Carter and Melissa Cafritz Trust; Carnegie Corporation of New York; DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities; Estée Lauder; Flocabulary; Harman Family Foundation; The Hearst Foundations; the Herb Alpert Foundation; the Howard and Geraldine Polinger Family Foundation; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; the Kimsey Endowment; The King-White Family Foundation and Dr. J. Douglas White; Laird Norton Family Foundation; Lois and Richard England Family Foundation; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols Foundation; The Morningstar Foundation; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation;
Music Theatre International; Myra and Leura Younker Endowment Fund; the National Endowment for the Arts; Newman’s Own Foundation; Nordstrom; Park Foundation, Inc.; Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Prince Charitable Trusts; Soundtrap; The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust; Rosemary Kennedy Education Fund; The Embassy of the United Arab Emirates; The Victory Foundation; The Volgenau Foundation; and Volkswagen Group of America. Additional support is provided by the National Committee for the Performing Arts.
The content of these programs may have been developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education but does not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education. You should not assume endorsement by the federal government.
