Opera Review: A Triple Header of Winners at the New Works Collective
I think this year’s might have been the strongest lineup yet.
Have you ever heard an opera audience react to the final scene with that collective “awwwww” usually reserved for YouTube puppy videos? Not likely, right?
Unless, of course, you were part of the opening night audience at Opera Theatre of St. Louis’s 2025 New Works Collective on February 6th. That’s exactly the way many of us reacted to the final moments of “Black Coffee,” the first of three world premiere 20-minute operas in this incredible showcase for new composers and librettists.
Just like last year, the three operas were chosen from a pool of 150 applicants (up from last year’s 130) by a panel of St. Louis artists, advocates, and community leaders. I think this year’s might have been the strongest lineup yet.
The score of “Black Coffee” by composer/violinist Concert Black blends contemporary classical and musical theater elements, perfectly matching the witty and sometimes poetic libretto by the multi-talented Alicia Revé Like. Mezzo Taylor-Alexis DuPont starred as Makena, a geeky and talented artist searching for friendship in all the wrong places. We first meet her drawing a colorful bird on her tablet. As the cartoon bird appears on the screen behind her, it comes clear that we are seeing Makena’s unorthodox soul.
A quick change of digital scenery reveals Makena in the sterile corporate office where she works, and where her retro schoolgirl clothes and clunky, black-rimmed glasses set her apart from her snarky co-workers (tenor James Stevens and mezzo Cierra Byrd). “How do you make friends as a grown up” she asks plaintively in a soliloquy. “How do you create bonds that never end. / I hope to build community, my village / A safe space with those I can be myself with.”
“Friends are not made overnight,” advises her father (tenor Martin Luther Clark, in a performance as warm as his voice). “The friend you will receive is who you should be. / They’ll see how you shine.”
That friend—the outgoing Allegra (soprano Emilie Kealani)—shows up in the final scene, set in the titular coffee shop. As Makena and Allegra chat and bond, Makena’s cartoon bird perches behind them. But this time she is joined by another equally colorful bird, producing that “awwww” I mentioned before.
The second opera, “Family Style,” has a score by composer and pianist Meilina Tsui and a libretto by playwright Meliisa Tien. Bass Paul Chwe Minchul An was Ping, a Taiwanese immigrant dreaming of turning his love of and skill at cooking the food of his homeland into a “deluxe father-and-daughter-run hole-in-the-wall” neighborhood restaurant. “I dream of growing / what the market does not sell,” he sings in a fancifully poetic aria. “I dream of building / a bridge to my country /through the food of my people.”
Ping’s daughter Mia (Emilie Kealani) dreams of graduating high school and attending a good college. That dream is apparently answered when she receives an acceptance letter from what her neighbor describes as “a fancy school” and then dashed when that same school tells her that she won’t be getting financial aid because she missed the deadline.
In most family dramas, this would set off a confrontation. But here, as in “Black Coffee,” father and daughter have a familial bond that unites rather than divides them. Willingly and lovingly, he gives Mia the money he has been saving for his restaurant. “Our deluxe / father-and-daughter-run / hole-in-the-wall,” he sings. “Now it is for you.”
Chwe MinChul An and Kealani were superb in their roles, perfectly capturing the warm and affectionate relationship between their characters. They were well supported by composer Tsui’s attractive score, which neatly melds contemporary Western and traditional Chinese sounds. That includes some arresting solos for the erhu (a two-stringed violin that dates back to the 7th-century Tang dynasty) played impeccably by Fang Liu.
The last work was the mini epic “Kandake,” with music by composer Dr. Tim Amukele, M.D., and a libretto by Jarrod Lee that pays homage to the Baroque conventions of opera seria, complete with arias, recitatives, and choruses. Like opera seria, the subject is a heroic figure from ancient history—in this case, the Kushite warrior queen Amanirenas (Amnirense qore li kdwe li), who led her people to victory against the Roman Empire in 25 BCE.
The part was sung with powerful authority by Cierra Byrd. The character goes through a substantial arc in the opera’s short time span, from grieving widow to fierce defender of her people and an advocate for peace and justice. She’s a bit like the title character in Mozart’s “La clemenza di Tito,” except that Amanirenas’s nobility is rooted in historical fact. And Byrd made it all completely credible. As her son Prince Akinidad, Martin Luther Clark gave the audience another opportunity to admire his vocal power and acting skill.
Amukele’s score relies heavily on the woodwinds and percussion, including an on-stage player of the djembe, a West African variant of the traditional goblet drum whose origins go back at least thirty centuries. The result is music that sounds ancient and exotic.
Dancers Ja’Don Hamilton, Julia Lucrelli, Robert Poe, and Jamila Scales brought added depth to the stories through Brandon Fink’s creative choreography. Darwin Aquino conducted the small but mighty orchestra in this wide-ranging evening of varied musical styles. Yuki Isumihara’s projections created stunning sets that were both realistic and subtle, as required. Stage Director Richard Gammon, Lighting Designer Kaitlyn Breen, and Costume Designer Angelique Newbauer (pity I don’t have an image for the spectacular “flying goddess” costume for Amanirenas) all added to the visual and theatrical appeal of the evening.
Always impressive and often inspiring, Opera Theatre of St. Louis’s New Works Collective ran February 6 through 8 at COCA in University City. It attracts a diverse and enthusiastic audience, as it should. Let us hope that it can survive the repressive cultural climate now infesting our nation’s capital.
Opera Theatre’s 2025 50th anniversary season kicks off in May at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus. For more information, visit the OTSL web site.