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Article Published: 13 Oct 2022

More Works by Women Composers

A glance at the upcoming 2022–2023 season reveals that works by women are continuing to gain a foothold in the repertoire. To name just a few: Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels’ Omar bows at LA Opera in October, fresh off its world premiere at Spoleto Festival USA. At the PROTOTYPE Festival in January, Du Yun follows up her Pulitzer Prize-winning Angel’s Bone with In Our Daughter’s Eyes, a chamber opera with a libretto by Michael Joseph McQuilken. And the following month, Seattle Opera offers the world premiere of A Thousand Splendid Suns, Sheila Silver and Stephen Kitsakos’ adaptation of the novel by Khaled Hosseini.

What all these composers have in common is that they are past recipients of Opera Grants for Women Composers (OGWC), an OPERA America grant program that has helped fund more than 100 new operas by women. The program is supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

This summer, seven more operas were added to the roster of OGWC-funded works when OPERA America awarded a new round of Commissioning Grants, providing a total of $100,000 to seven opera companies. These grants offer funding for opera companies to commission new works by women, covering up to 50 percent of a composer’s commissioning fee. (See below for details of the commissioned works.)

With the addition of these Commissioning Grants, OGWC has now awarded more than $1.6 million since its inception in 2013.

Alternating with Commissioning Grants, the OGWC program also awards Discovery Grants directly to women composers, funding developmental activities for works in progress. Applica­tions for the next round of Discovery Grants are currently open, and the intent to apply is due by December 14. For additional information and to apply, visit operaamerica.org/Grants.

OGFC: 2022 Commissioning Grant Recipients

The American Opera Project

Jade Star Hotel
Stephanie Chou, composer

Susan Kander, librettist

The opera is a loose adaptation of an earlier song cycle by Chou. That opera is inspired by the lives of Chinese “comfort woman,” a euphemism for the women who were abducted and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army in the 1930s and 1940s. The opera’s story centers on Lian, a 16-year-old who is kidnapped by Japanese soldiers, kept at a military “comfort station,” and subsequently rejected by her family.

Beth Morrison Projects

Old Man and the Sea
Paola Prestini, composer
Royce Vavrek, librettist

In this reimagining of Hemingway’s 1952 novella, women have become the guardians of the world’s culture, weaving memories and fables into fishing nets that preserve them for the future. The opera serves as a fable about the desire to leave a legacy and the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

Finger Lakes Opera

Two Corners 
B.E. Boykin, composer
Jarrod Lee, librettist

This one-act opera is set in rural Alabama shortly after the passage of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The opera will be workshopped during the 2023 summer residency of Finger Lakes Opera’s Tomita Young Artists and premiered in downtown Rochester, New York, in August 2024.

Long Beach Opera

Death, both of us dead
Shelley Washington, composer

Librettist to be announced

The opera uses surrealism to retell the true story of Nell Theobald, a young actress and model who spent almost two decades stalking and send­ing nightly flowers and cards to soprano Birgit Nilsson. Spanning 1966 to 1977, and set entirely within Theobald’s hotel room, the narrative explores the mental illness that eventually caused Theo­bald to commit suicide.

Opera Birmingham

Touch
Carla Lucero, composer and co-librettist
Marianna Mott Newirth, co-librettist

The opera explores the com­plicated relationship between Helen Keller and her men­tor-companion, Anne Sullivan. The work highlights Keller’s achievements as a writer, activist, and advocate for women’s suffrage, dis­ability rights, and civil rights, while revealing her deep inner life as she struggles to gain agency within her own world.

Opera San José

Title to be announced
Rene Orth, composer/ librettist

Opera San José first composer-in-residence, Rene Orth, will create an opera based on an existing play. The work will premiere in June 2023.

Spoleto Festival USA

Ruinous Gods
Layla Chaker, composer
Lisa Schlesinger, librettist

Ruinous Gods centers on seven displaced children who have uppgivenhetssyndrom, or resignation syndrome, a rare trauma response diag­nosed in children at refugee camps around the world. This opera, based on testimonies of refugees, resists the tropes of popular dystopian narra­tives and instead centers the characters’ own imagina­tions. The work will premiere at Spoleto’s 2024 festival.