A first in 50 years, Opera to premiere ‘Morning Star’

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incinnati Opera will present the world premiere of the opera “Morning Star,” with music by Ricky Ian Gordon and a libretto by William M. Hoffman, during the company’s 2015 Summer Festival.

The two-act opera is the company’s first world premiere of a main-stage opera in more than 50 years. It will be presented in seven performances June 30-July 19, 2015, in the Corbett Theater at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, Over-the-Rhine.

A lead gift of $50,000 from the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati will support production costs as well as community programming focused on the issues raised in the opera.

“Morning Star” is adapted from Sylvia Regan’s 1940 play of the same name. It follows the story of the Felderman family, Russian Jewish immigrants who arrive in New York in the early 20th century hoping for a better life. Gordon and Hoffman, who was the librettist for “The Ghosts of Versailles,” began working on the opera more than a decade ago, when Gordon was composer-in-residence at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Against the backdrop of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, the opera illuminates a family’s struggle to survive during the time of an enormous movement in American society, the creation of organized labor.

“You can appreciate it as a great social message, at the dawn of the labor movement, and at the level of a mother who is just trying to keep family together against all odds,” said Evans Mirageas, Cincinnati Opera artistic director.

Soprano Twyla Robinson will star as matriarch Becky Felderman.

Gordon, who has composed for renowned singers such as Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw and Nathan Gunn, says he was inspired by the similarities between the play and his own family history. His grandmother, who was named Becky, worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, but on the day of the fire – which killed 146 people – was at home ill. She ran over to see her good friends jumping out of the windows in flames.

Musically, Gordon captures the early-vaudeville style in the signature song of “Morning Star” and writes with a distinctive American sound in arias and ensembles, Mirageas says.

“Not since George Gershwin do we have someone who has this endless, inexhaustible supply of melodic invention available to him,” he says.

“Morning Star” was developed in a residency in 2012 as part of Opera Fusion: New Works, a partnership between Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Opera Department. The initiative, funded by a $300,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, offers residencies to American composers or creative teams to develop new operas. Cincinnati Opera invited creators Gordon and Hoffman back for further refining in a workshop last April.

The opera will be directed by Ron Daniels, who staged the world premiere of the new American opera “Il Postino” at LA Opera in 2010, and conducted by Christopher Allen, assistant conductor at LA Opera.

On May 7, Cincinnati Opera and Opera America, a support organization, will present “Creators in Concert: Music and Words with Ricky Ian Gordon,” featuring the composer, Mirageas and opera singers performing music from “Morning Star” and other works, at The National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Avenue in New York City. The 7 p.m. event will be streamed live at www.operaamerica.org.

It is part of “Cincy in NYC,” a week showcasing Cincinnati’s arts in New York, May 6-12. ■