Singer

Mahler called his Eighth Symphony, “the biggest thing that I have ever done…in which the most beautiful instrument in the world is given its true place.” Music Director Laureate James Conlon concludes the 150th May Festival with a work of gigantic proportions—music of triumph and transcendence that celebrates the power of the human voice, featuring the sounds of the Chorus and the CSO in the breathtaking space of Music Hall.

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Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand

Cincinnati Music Hall

Celebrated maestra Marin Alsop makes her May Festival debut with a showcase of composers who crafted the American musical identity. Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is a lyrical dream of the Tennessee summer, while Aaron Copland's "The Promise of Living" rings with the hope of prosperity. The "uncanny radiance" (The New Yorker) of Robert Nathaniel Dett's The Ordering of Moses— a work the Festival premiered in 1937—returns to Music Hall.

Marin Alsop: American Voices

Sorcery, jealous rages, desire, and hellish Demons all come into play in Handel’s opera Amadigi di Gaula. This compact, taut drama is a vehicle for Handel to do what he did best: exploring the emotions of his characters, from love to suffering—reflecting on sentiment in a way perhaps deeper than in any of his other operas. In this composition he conjures a surprising sound world with star countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo here in the title role. Handel also makes prominent use of wind instruments, which make the music unusually colorful, befitting this story which explores the full gamut of human emotion.
Amadigi di Gaula is a co-production between Boston Baroque and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chrorale.

Handel's Amadigi di Gaula

Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera

In Harlem, a couple celebrates the birth of their firstborn—a boy, Black and beautiful. As the mother worries for her son’s future in today’s America, the father wrestles with his role as a police officer, a “Black man in blue.” When the unimaginable happens years later and a white officer kills the son, their deepest fears will come true.

Following its postponement in our 2020–2021 season, WNO presents the long-awaited D.C. premiere of Blue, the “Best New Opera of 2020” (The Music Critics Association of North America). Tony Award®–winning composer Jeanine Tesori and NAACP Theatre Award–winning librettist Tazewell Thompson’s new opera is inspired by contemporary events and Black literature, including Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me and James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. Jeanine’s signature genre-blending style captures the grief of a community, the bonds of a family, and the vulnerabilities of protecting a child. By giving voice to the joy and pain of families that are often unheard, Blue places timely issues at the forefront of modern opera and invites audiences to the emotional epicenter of their impact.

Blue

Kennedy Center

In 1807, a 37-year-old scholar living in West Africa was captured and forced aboard a slave ship bound for Charleston, South Carolina. Omar Ibn Said's life and Muslim faith are remembered and retold in this inspirational West Coast premiere inspired by his remarkable 1831 autobiography (the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic).
Set in the shifting darkness of memory and imagination, Omar follows his compelling journey from a peaceful life in his homeland to enslavement in a violent, foreign world. Lost in the wilderness of his thoughts and his stolen life, he's haunted by memories of his family and the people he encounters along the way. Through it all, he somehow remains true to himself and his faith, against all odds. The luminous score—composed by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels—incorporates distinctive West African traditions with traditional opera instrumentation.
Tenor Jamez McCorkle makes his company debut in the title role, with bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch in a double role as two very different slave masters. Norman Garrett makes his company debut as Omar's brother, with Barry Banks as the auctioneer and Jacqueline Echols as Julie, an enslaved woman who gives Omar the key to a better life.

Briana Hunter

Mezzo-soprano

Events

May 27, 2023

Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand · The May Festival

May 20, 2023

Marin Alsop: American Voices · The May Festival

20 - 22 Apr, 2023

Handel's Amadigi di Gaula · Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale

11 - 25 Mar, 2023

Blue · Washington National Opera

Oct 22 - Nov 13, 2022

Omar · LA Opera

About

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