To celebrate and spotlight some of the field’s top artists and emerging singers, OPERA America recently asked member companies to nominate the singers and production artists who have caught their ears and eyes.

In the landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia, the court struck down restrictions on mixed-race marriages nationwide. The plaintiffs, Richard and Mildred Loving — a White man and a Black woman — had been convicted in 1959 of violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act and ordered to leave the state for 25 years.

“The reality is, they just wanted to go home,” says composer Damien Geter.

(After the court’s ruling, the couple was able to return to their hometown, Central Point.)

A native of Chesterfield, Virginia, and the Richmond Symphony’s current composer-in-residence, Geter worked with librettist Jessica Murphy Moo to adapt the Lovings’ story into an opera: Loving v. Virginia, a centerpiece of Virginia Opera’s 50th-anniversary season, co-commissioned with the Richmond Symphony. The opera premiered this spring: “I was excited by the composer and librettist as a team, as they come from such different perspectives, but seem to have created an extraordinary whole,” says Maggey Oplinger, general director and CEO of Florentine Opera.

Geter’s score draws on an eclectic set of influences: rock ‘n’ roll of the 1950s and 1960s, 20th-century atonality, church hymns, folksy acoustic-guitar music. He says that he typically blends different styles of music from the Black diaspora with classical traditions and focuses on social justice themes in his work, which range from choral works like THE TALK: Instructions for Black Children When They Interact with the Police for a cappella choir to symphonic works like An African American Requiem and The Justice Symphony.

His other operatic offerings include American Apollo (Lila Palmer, librettist), which was commissioned as a chamber opera by Washington National Opera and as a full-scale opera by Des Moines Metro Opera, and Delta King’s Blues (Jarrod Lee, librettist), another chamber opera, commissioned by IN Series.

His collaborator, Jessica Murphy Moo, is the editor of Portland magazine and has held a variety of editorial positions, including communications editor at Seattle Opera and staff editor at The Atlantic. “Damien and I asked each other, ‘What makes opera a good way to tell this story?’” says Moo. “But there’s a lot about it that opera can add to and help us understand. It’s a love story; it’s a story about longing for home.”

Moo has two other operatic credits: She worked with composer Jack Perla to create An American Dream, which explores the lives of two families during World War II, and with composer Frances Pollock on the family-friendly opera Earth to Kenzie, which follows a fifth grader with an active imagination.

The creators of Loving v. Virginia are one of four In the Wings profiles featured in our spring 2025 magazine. You can read all the profiles here.

In the Wings is underwritten by generous support from Laurie E. Nelson Randlett, trustee of the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera.

To learn about other upcoming premieres, visit the National Opera Calendar.