‘Lalovavi’ – Black Opera Project looks to the future

Morris Robinson was frustrated.

Robinson, a bass whose presence has illuminated several Cincinnati Opera productions and, since 2017, has been an artistic adviser to the company, had just completed a rehearsal for the 2019 production of “Porgy and Bess.” He wasn’t complaining about the show itself. He had the lead role of Porgy, a role he had triumphed with three years earlier at La Scala in Milan. 

No, Robinson’s frustration was about something much more profound than a single production.

“I realized that for my son and his friends, this was going to be their introduction to opera,” said Robinson. “In the first 10 minutes, we see drug-dealing, murder and prostitution.”

What he left unsaid is that Black characters are at the center of all of that illicit action.

“When is someone going to write about our creativity and joy?”

Robinson stopped talking for a moment. Suddenly, he erupted with some guttural sound; half-groan, half-sob. Or is it anger? He had so much he wanted to say. But rather than let a lifetime of such frustrations explode in an impassioned rant, he calmed down and opted for a more prudent approach.

Enunciating each word slowly and carefully, he said, “We have to find something better to do.”

The negative depictions of Blacks isn’t singular to opera. Film, theater, literature, news media – all have been criticized for their portrayal of racial minorities. But when Robinson was speaking, back in 2019, dissatisfaction about race in opera was at a boiling point. A few months after Robinson’s comments, in fact, he was part of a panel of distinguished Black artists whose discussion about their experiences in opera went viral. (Find it on youtube.com) He was also part of a heavily quoted story in the New York Times headlined “Opera Can No Longer Ignore Its Race Problem.”

The cultural collision of race and opera seemed to be everywhere. But would anything come of it? Would these protests result in a handful of woulda-coulda-shoulda statements? In many cases, that is exactly what happened. But Robinson and the Cincinnati Opera did find something better to do.

In 2024, after several years of discussions and negotiations, and some generous funding by the Mellon Foundation, Cincinnati Opera announced the creation of The Black Opera Project, described as “a groundbreaking, three-opera commissioning initiative that engages Black creators to develop new works celebrating Black stories.”

The first of those three operas, “Lalovavi,” premieres at Music Hall on July 9, with music by Kevin Day and a libretto by poet Tifara Brown, with stage direction by Kimille Howard and conducted by Kevin Miller.

The 2027 opera season will see the premiere of “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” with music by Maria Thompson Corley and libretto by Diana Solomon-Glover. Everett McCorvey will conduct and stage direction and dramaturgy will be by Timothy Douglas, well-known to Cincinnati audiences as a frequent director at the Playhouse in the Park. Douglas will be back in 2028 to direct the third commission in The Black Opera Project, “Good Bones,” created by a pair of Pulitzer Prize winners, composer Michael Abels and librettist James Ijames, who wrote the play the opera is based on. 

“Part of the argument why we couldn’t have works like these has always been, ‘We would love to have this art, but there are no Blacks in the pipeline who can create this sort of work,’ ” Robinson said. “At Cincinnati Opera we’re checking off all those boxes right now.”

Despite the influx of money from the Mellon Foundation, commissioning these three operas demanded a huge leap of confidence on the part of Cincinnati Opera.

Unknown operas can be tough sells. And world premieres even more so. There are exceptions, of course, particularly when a celebrity is involved, as was the case with Cincinnati Opera’s premiere staging of Paul McCartney’s “Liverpool Oratorio.”

But the creators of “Lalovavi” are not in McCartney’s league when it comes to fame.

Kevin Day was a 25-year-old graduate student at the University of Georgia when Robinson first heard his music. Day was no compositional rookie. He’d already composed well over 100 works, including his 2018 breakthrough Concerto for Euphonium. (You can hear a recording of the United States Marine Band at youtube.com)

But that initial encounter was most unexpected. It was 2021 and Robinson was part of a Fourth of July concert with the Fort Worth Symphony. While he was offstage, he heard an “amazing” piece of music, but he didn’t recognize it. Turns out, it was Day’s “Lightspeed,” an orchestral fanfare.

“A few days after the concert, I got an Instagram message from Morris Robinson,” Day recalled. “He said something like ‘You don’t know who I work for, but …’ and then he proceeded to tell me he’d like to talk about creating a work for the Cincinnati Opera.”

Never mind that Day had never written an opera before. He had never even considered it. But Morris Robinson can be a very convincing proselytizer in the cause of opera.

“He mentioned ‘Black Panther,’ ” Day said, referring to the 2018 Hollywood hit movie that revolved around a technologically advanced African culture isolated from the rest of the world disguised as an underdeveloped country. “He was very clear that he wasn’t looking for a ‘Black Panther’ opera. But he was hoping to have a work that had the same appeal to the opera world that ‘Black Panther’ had on Hollywood.”

For Day, who would love nothing more than to create scores for big movies, it sounded like a dream gig. All except the part about it being an opera.

“That part was a little intimidating.”

Like any freelance artist worth his salt, though, he said, “Yes. Let’s talk.”

Day decided to contact performance poet Tifara Brown to see if she would be interested in working with him to create a libretto for his new opera. A few months earlier, they had a successful collaboration at a poetry/chamber music workshop at the University of Georgia School of Music. Brown proved to be an adventurous and inventive collaborator.

Like Day, she was slightly flabbergasted by the prospect of writing an opera.

“I told him I’d never done anything like that before,” Brown said. But the idea of trailblazing into the world of opera sounded fascinating. “I was definitely intrigued. When else would I have a chance to do something like this?”

All that remained was to actually create an opera. It was a lengthy process, involving intensive brainstorming sessions and workshops

“The opera you’ll see is actually the third concept they came up with,” said the Cincinnati Opera’s artistic director, Evans Mirageas. “The first one? I told them it wasn’t quite there yet. So they went away and came back with a second one. It had to do with murals and art that you find in the city. And it was closer to what we were looking for. So, we asked them to revise that concept.”

Conductor Kevin Miller has vivid memories of those early drafts.

“It was clear that Kevin was a gifted composer. But he was still trying to find his way in opera. Sometimes it sounded like he was trying to be Mozart and write recitatives. I told him to worry less about traditional form and to write the music he is comfortable with. They commissioned him to write this opera because they wanted to hear his musical voice.”

When Day and Brown came back with their third concept, they threw Mirageas and his staff a major curve.

“We told them we had thrown out all of our previous work and had a completely different idea for them to consider,” Brown said.

Mirageas admits that he was mildly alarmed when he heard that.

“But one of the benefits of having 50 years in the music business is that I have seen all of this before,” Mirageas said. “By now, I am blessed to be able to know the difference between genuine creativity and people who can’t make up their minds. They wanted something wholly original. And they knew exactly how they wanted to accomplish that. I don’t think our internal team was more than two paragraphs into it before we knew that we had a winner on our hands.”

One of the most ambitious aspects of this trio of new operas is that, unlike many new works, they will not be performed in one of the smaller spaces Cincinnati Opera often employs. “Lalovavi” and its successor productions will be performed on Music Hall’s mainstage. Just like “Carmen.” Or “Aida.”

Is Cincinnati Opera taking a chance? You bet. This demonstrates a level of boldness one could hardly have predicted from the company 25 or 30 years ago. But then, investing in the future of an art form rather than merely its past necessarily involves a bit of daring.

“Lalovavi” is an Afrofuturist, three-act opera set 400 years in the future. It is sung mostly in English, though it occasionally employs Tut, a language that evolved in the 18th century among enslaved Black Americans coming from many different cultures and native languages. Indeed, we are told that the opera’s title – “Lalovavi” – means “love” in the Tut language.

The plot is as sci-fi as it gets. Indeed, when you read the synopsis, it sounds more like something lifted in from the Marvel Cinematic Universe than a work from the operatic canon.

But then, you don’t have to look too deeply into the plots of many of the operatic warhorses before you run into outlandishly farfetched plot twists.

And what about Robinson? He is, after all, the one whose nudge set this entire project into motion.

“At this point, I am just a singer learning a new role,” he insisted. “I am not wearing my administrative hat.”

But is he pleased with what Cincinnati Opera has undertaken? Does he feel any pride at all?

“It takes another level of courage and commitment to speak out and do something where you see change is necessary,” Robinson said. “And I think we have demonstrated both of those things. I’m tired of telling R&B singers to do operas. This is how you make change.
And we’re going to make this work.”

Cincinnati Opera presents the world premiere of “Lalovavi,” July 9 and 11, 7:30 p.m., Music Hall.

cincinnatiopera.org