Operas in Concert: Casting Off Chains - Abolition, Civil War
With the contested role of violence for social advancement in fresh public focus, Kirke Mechem’s nuanced sketch of the abolitionist John Brown is particularly compelling programming in 2025. “Profound and haunting,” John Brown is an opera that “may be as close to an American epic as anything yet written.” (National Catholic Reporter) In a testimony to the enduring power of Brown’s story and the continued importance of this chapter of American history, the opera closes with Frederick Douglass’ famous line: “You cannot bury him! As long as men love freedom, John Brown will never die.”
'Blow Ye the Trumpet' from John Brown, UGA University Chorus
© Scott Suchman/Washington National Opera
Philip Glass/Christopher Hampton
Originally commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, the first version of Appomattox focused on the end of the Civil War and premiered in 2007. In 2015, Glass and Hampton revised the opera in response to a landmark Supreme Court case eroding voting rights. Its new, second act depicts Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s meeting to sign the historic Voting Rights Act. In depicting these weighty historical moments, Glass' “music shines...in the details of its text setting, the composer's simple rhythmic motifs serve as a sort of musical trellis around which he can wind the phrases of Hampton's libretto with the naturalness and careful pacing of a speaking actor” (San Francisco Chronicle). Tazewell Thompson’s “sparsely staged and smartly directed” version of the revised version (The Guardian) points the way forward to a successful concert presentation of the opera.
Soloists: Melody Moore (Julia Grant/Viola Liuzzo), Anne-Carolyn Bird (Mary Todd Lincoln/Lady Bird Johnson), Chrystal E. Williams (Elizabeth Keckley/Coretta Scott King)
trailer, Washington National Opera
© Los Angeles Opera/Rob Latour
Aucoin describes Crossing as “an operatic fantasia based on Walt Whitman’s experiences as a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War.” The opera’s heart is Whitman’s relationship with the young soldier John Wormley — a relationship fraught with both love and betrayal. A small chorus of low voices rounds out the economical cast, making the work “a true ensemble piece […] the superb 11-voice male chorus functions both as clearly defined individual soldiers and as the collective, which is reflected in the writing: at times contrapuntal, at times a mass of individual notes, at times in perfect harmony” (Financial Times). Aucoin’s writing is accessible and melodic, and the opera overall “is a taut, teeming and inspired work” (The New York Times).
Soloists: Rod Gilfry (Walt Whitman), Brenton Ryan (John Wormley)
selections, Brooklyn Academy of Music
Art’s Afterlives | Feminist Essays | Casting Off Chains: Abolition and the Civil War | The Americas: Latine Culture and History | East Asian Love Stories | Positively Medieval: Stories of the Middle Ages and Renaissance | Classics of English Fiction | The 19th Century: Great Wars and Colonial Sorrows | Upheavals of the 20th Century | The Weight of Motherhood