The New York City Opera's world-premiere production of the new opera Stonewall, featuring music by Iain Bell and libretto by Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Campbell, begins performances June 21.
Directed by Leonard Foglia, the limited engagement is scheduled through June 28 at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center (in the Time Warner Center at Broadway and 60th Street).
Watch highlights from the production in the video above from videographer Hilan Warshaw of Overtone Films. Also included are interviews with librettist Campbell, composer Bell, and conductor Carolyn Kuan.
The cast includes Andrew Bidlack, Liz Bouk, Lisa Chavez, Michael Corvino, Jessica Fishenfeld, Marc Heller, Brian James Myer, and Jordan Weatherston Pitts.
Stonewall, the first opera to feature a transgender character specially created for a transgender singer (Bouk), is conducted by Carolyn Kuan. Richard Stafford choreographs.
The new opera, set in 1969, features a cross-section of characters—Maggie (Chavez), a proud lesbian who is harassed on the subway and mocked by the police; Carlos (Myer), a Dominican-American English teacher recently fired from a Catholic school; Renata (Pitts), who by day is known as Maynard, an African-American city clerk; Larry (Heller), an NYPD deputy inspector; and Sarah (Bouk), a transgender woman celebrating the first year anniversary of her transition—find themselves thrown together in a Greenwich Village dance club with explosive results that give birth to a movement.
READ: Laura Kaminsky’s As One, More Join Stonewall in New York City Opera’s 2018–2019 Season
Stonewall continues New York City Opera’s Pride Initiative of producing an LGBT-focused work each June in commemoration of Gay Pride Month.
Tickets are available online at NYCOpera.com.
