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World Premiere of Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith's Castor and Patience at Cincinnati Opera

Aug. 08, 2022

Cincinnati Opera presented the world premiere of Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith's Castor and Patience on July 21, with additional performances on July 23, 24, 28, & 30.

A long overdue family reunion finds two African American cousins at odds over the fate of a historic parcel of land they have inherited in the American South. Deeply relevant to ongoing calls for racial justice, Castor and Patience probes historical and continuing obstacles to Black land ownership in the United States. With powerful, soaring music by Gregory Spears, composer of the acclaimed Fellow Travelers, and an original libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, Castor and Patience is the story not just of a single family or even a particular geography, but of America’s warring tensions between reckoning with the hard facts of history and racing blindly forward toward the dream of progress.

Kazem Abdullah conducted and Kevin Newbury directed this thrilling new production which has garnered outstanding critical acclaim. The Cincinnati Business Courier praised the work's "...evocative, poetic libretto, gorgeous orchestral score and powerhouse cast of singing actors." Zachary Woolfe of The New York Times praised the work and production noting, "The agonies and pleasures of Castor and Patience...are like those of a less densely orchestrated Puccini. As in Tosca, La Bohème or Madama Butterfly, unabashedly, even shamelessly effusive vocal lines draw us poignantly close to characters in a rending situation: here, a Black family riven by disagreement over whether to sell part of a precious plot of land...Their outpourings are so fervent, the melodies so sweet, that you can find yourself moved nearly to tears by more or less random lines...If it’s emotionally manipulative — in the distinguished tradition of Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Carlisle Floyd — it’s expertly so."


(Talise Trevigne sings "Think you know this man?" from Castor and Patience, 
with Marie-France Lefebvre and Michael Lewis on piano)

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

Gregory Spears / Tracy K. Smith
Castor and Patience (2020)
an opera in two acts
Castor · bass-baritone - Celeste · mezzo-soprano - Ruthie · soprano - Judah · tenor - Patience · soprano - West · bass-baritone - Wilhelmina ("Willie") · soprano - Clarissa · soprano - Jane · mezzo-soprano - Cato · baritone - Nestor · tenor - Second Man · bass
2(2.afl).2.0.2-2.2.1.0-2perc(placed on either side of the stage in the wings with same instrumentation)[2 b.d, 2 tri, 2 sus cym, 2 vib, tam-t)-hp-str(min6.6.4.4.2)
140'

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