WNO Mini Operas Given Red Carpet Debut

 Washington National Opera presented three 20-minute opera premieres January 18, 2025, in their twelfth anniversary American Opera Initiatives program. In this learning laboratory that included sets and costumes, WNO staff headed by Artistic Director Francesca Zambello and General Director Timothy O’Leary paired three composers with three librettists. Mentors assigned to these creative teams were the prolific opera composer Greg Spears (Castor and Patience) and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith (librettist of Castor and Patience). The works were performed by excellent singers in the Cafritz Young Artist Program and the Washington National Opera Orchestra conducted by George Manahan, who has premiered hundreds of operas. The director was Chloe Treat.

 

The three mini operas were:

 

—Tati by composer Kyle Brenn & librettist Lex Brown

—Cry, Wolf by composer JL Marlor & librettist Clare Fuyuko Bierman

—Mud Girl by composer Omar Najmi & librettist Christine Evans

 

The orchestra for all three operas provided a variety of interesting textures, especially involving percussion instruments. The mildly dissonant music seemed summoned from the same nickelodeon. Was this musical sameness a consequence of the preference of the vetting team that selected these composers, an influence of a mentor, or something else? 

 

 

Two of the stories Tati and Mud Girl deal with environmental issues. Tati concerns three people living inside a whale. Why they are there and how they plan to escape their current situation is too confusing and complicated to describe. The stage prop representing the sick whale’s heart co-exists in the space where the three are trapped. Swallowing plastic bags is a factor as to why the whale is sick.

 

 In an apocalyptic world, Mud Girl involves two women living under a bridge in a relationship that functions almost as mother and daughter. River, the younger woman, is lonely and thus constructs Poly to be her friend. River makes Poly out of mud, plastic and AI-infused trash that includes things like smart water, smart bombs and smart garden gnomes. Poly is played by two women dressed alike who cling to each other like Siamese twins. River’s mother-figure Maude, formerly a scientist, warns River against the flotsam delivered by a flood that presumably made them homeless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cry, Wolf is a more straight forward look at young men and their self-images as they try to attract the opposite sex. The story features two college boys, one full of bluster who says he is a wolf. He howls to make his point and claims that is the way to attract women. The other college boy has no self confidence and believes he is ugly. His younger brother still in high school shows up for a visit and tries to shake his brother out of his self-hating torpor.

O’Leary and Zambello say in their introductory letter that some mentors have “confided that they feel the 20-minute form is more challenging than a longer work.” This gives rise to the question: will any of these 20-minute operas ever be produced again? This year for the first time, these three short operas will be staged on January 23rd in New York City at the Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall. For these composers and librettists to work with such accomplished singers and musicians in two prestigious venues—Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and New York’s Kaufman Music Center—under the guidance and sponsorship of WNO, a major American opera company, is a major boost to their career paths.

 

 

Photos Bronwen Sharp