NEW ORIGINAL STUDENT WORK

UTSA’s New Opera Examines the Voices of Individuals within a Protest Scene

Drs. William McCrary and Jourdan Laine Howell are working with a talented group of singers in Chamber Opera to create a new opera.

Students in the class include both majors and non-majors, and will be credited as librettists for the new opera: Briana Bell, Shirlyn Davenport, Greta Glasscock, Kyree Harrison, Patricia King, Lucas Moncada-Zoll, Jessica Morales, Louie Ramos, Ashley Rodriguez, and Hector Tobar.

Patricia King A fter nearly a month of serious-minded discussions, these budding librettists have begun sketching out the plot of the opera, which will center around a large protest scene. While the protest will serve as a vehicle for important ensemble numbers, the goal is to take a closer look at the lives of individuals at the scene, whether they are raising their voice for a cause, serving and protecting, looking for social media fame, or simply trying to maneuver through the crowd. The students agreed that they should make room for different points of view in their opera, and hope that showing multiple narratives will make the piece both appealing and thoughtprovoking for future audiences.

The students are enthusiastic about the project and committed to giving every member of the team a voice in the libretto. Louie Ramos (Performance) is “excited to get to create something with people after so many months of not being able to,” and believes that the discussions about characters and story development are an invaluable resource for a performer.

Patricia King (Music Education) has enjoyed imagining all of the show’s possible outcomes. “During the brainstorming stage, we bounced ideas off of each other, feeding into a collective energy…forging personal connections and creating an environment open for sincere and productive conversation,” said King. “Unlike any of my other classes, the atmosphere in Lyric Theatre has allowed us to start tackling some major social issues [so we can] learn to use opera as a vehicle for modern communication and channel our energies into our art. This approach has given me a new way to process the difficult real-world situations we are faced with everyday and use it to express myself in a way I didn’t even know I needed.”

As the process moves forward, the team will focus on developing layered characters and creating realistic dialogue that will become the opera’s arias and ensembles. And while the project is still in its beginning stages, the singers are already dreaming about the performance and its impact. Incoming Music Education major Briana Bell thinks, “It is great that we get to write an opera, not only to gain experience, but also to be able to touch the hearts of the audience with our message.”