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Opera Parallèle and the Presidio Theatre Present The West Coast Premiere of Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce's Fellow Travelers

Jun. 28, 2024

Opera Parallèle and the Presidio Theatre presented the West Coast premiere of Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce's acclaimed opera, Fellow Travelers, based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon, on June 21-23 at San Francisco's Presidio Theatre in a new production directed by Brian Staufenbiel and conducted by Jaymes Kirksey. 

Fellow Travelers follows the story of Hawk and Tim who become clandestine lovers at the height of the McCarthy Era in 1950's Washington D.C. Recent college graduate Timothy Laughlin is eager to join the crusade against communism. A chance encounter with handsome State Department official Hawkins Fuller leads to Tim’s first job—and his first love affair with a man. Drawn into a maelstrom of deceit, Tim struggles to reconcile his political convictions and his forbidden love for Fuller. The piece uses the love affair of Laughlin and Fuller to shed light on the "lavender scare”, an often-overlooked period of McCarthyism that resulted in the mass firings of suspected homosexuals from the United States government. “It’s about a part of our history which was almost invisible,” Spears says of Fellow Travelers, “and I think one of the things opera can do is make invisible things visible.” 

Critics have universally praised Fellow Travelers for the boldness of its story and the beauty of Spears’s music. Corinna da Fonseca Wollheim (New York Times) praises Fellow Travelers as “...the most romantic new opera I have seen in years. It’s also one of the most successfully political,” and John von Rhein (Chicago Tribune) declares, “... a poignant and moving meditation.... Fellow Travelers is one of the most accomplished new American operas I have encountered in recent years.” And Alex Ross (The New Yorker) notes "...the intimate power of Spears's musical voice, which is unlike that of any composer now working, is a kind of shivery, fraught simplicity. Spears has an eerie ability to suggest interior landscapes that go unseen, interior lives that go unspoken. In giving us glimpses of hidden selves, his music becomes universal in reach."


Trailer: Opera Parallèle and the Presidio Theatre Present Fellow Travelers

Fellow Travelers was developed and co-commissioned by G. Sterling Zinsmeyer and Cincinnati Opera. Development support was also provided by “Opera Fusion: New Works,” a joint venture between Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  Originally produced by Cincinnati Opera in a production created by Kevin Newbury in 2016, Fellow Travelers has gone on to garner widespread critical and popular acclaim playing to sold-out houses at multiple opera companies.

Singers and pianists should note that piano-vocal reductions of the arias: "I Worry, That's All", "Last Night", and "Our Very Own Home", from Fellow Travelers are published separately and available on PSNY here.

To learn more about Gregory Spears, visit: schott-music.com.

Gregory Spears
Fellow Travelers (2016)
an opera in two acts
Libretto (En) by Greg Pierce
based on the novel “Fellow Travelers” by Thomas Mallon
3 sop, ten, 3 bar, b-bar
1.1.1.0-0.0.2.0-pno-str(min 3.3.2.2.1)
105'

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