new operas featuring libretti by tracy K. Smith
The Righteous
Santa Fe Opera World Premiere 2024 | NY Times Critic's Pick | Music by Gregory Spears | Libretto by Tracy K. Smith | Directed by Kevin Newbury | BBC Music Magazine feature
David struggles to reconcile spirituality with ambition. His desire for more transforms his relationship with his family, friends and, perhaps, his own faith. His journey from preacher to Governor, like the lives of those closest to him, is shaped by current affairs of the 1980s.
Castor and Patience
Cincinnati Opera world premiere 2022 | NY Times Critic's Pick | Music by Gregory Spears | Libretto by Tracy K. Smith | Directed by Kevin Newbury
A long overdue family reunion finds two African American cousins at odds over the fate of a historic parcel of land they have inherited in the American South. Castor is eager to sell the land to pay off his crushing debt, but Patience is determined to fight off overzealous investors and preserve her family’s legacy. Deeply relevant to ongoing calls for racial justice, Castor and Patience probes historical and continuing obstacles to Black land ownership in the U.S. With powerful, soaring music by Gregory Spears, composer of Cincinnati Opera's acclaimed 2016 commission Fellow Travelers, and an original libretto by Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, this timeless and topical premiere is the buzz of the opera world.
A Marvelous Order
Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State world premiere 2022 | Music by Judd Greenstein | Libretto by Tracy K. Smith | Animation and Direction by Joshua Frankel
A Marvelous Order is a new opera about the battle between Robert Moses, the Master Builder, and Jane Jacobs, the self-taught oracle of unparalleled urban insight, over the fate of New York City. When Moses plans to demolish Jacobs' home and neighborhood, Jacobs leads a revolt, igniting a conflict that continues to shape built environments around the world—from small towns to global cities—and the lives of all who call them home.
A Marvelous Order humanizes the struggle between power and protest as only music, poetry and art can do.