Finger Lakes Opera — the preeminent professional opera company in Greater Rochester — reached its milestone 10th season last year, and is entering its second decade with the 2023 season. Founded by Artistic Director Gerard Floriano, the conductor and music department chair at SUNY Geneseo, Finger Lakes Opera was formed in the wake of Mercury Opera Rochester’s dissolution in 2011, which in turn had been born out of the community opera theater Rochester Opera Factory.
Along with Eastman School of Music’s opera department, FLO has been the main source of live opera performance locally in recent years. But rather than rest easy in this accomplishment and maintain the status quo, the professional company has commissioned a new opera — Black composer B.E. Boykin and Black librettist Jarrod Lee’s “Two Corners” — suggesting a progressive approach to presenting the centuries-old art form in the 21st century.
On July 23, FLO will present a workshop version of “Two Corners” at the Theater at Innovation Square downtown, featuring Rochesterian and emergent star soprano Kearstin Piper Brown (who is also a fill-in host at WXXI’s Classical 91.5). The story is based on a true-life friendship between the composer’s grandmother Florine and a white woman named Sarah during the civil rights era.
“I do like the storytelling mechanism of opera,” said Lee, who is a singer in addition to being a librettist (another word for ‘playwright’ in opera). That doesn’t mean being a contemporary librettist is without frustration for Lee – he is sometimes asked if he has read the great librettists of the past, who were almost exclusively white Europeans. “And I say, ‘No. No. No,” he said, “because your question was already tainted with an influence that does not serve me, nor the artists that will present the story, nor the collaborator that I'm going to work with, nor the people who will receive the story.“
“Two Corners” is also a personal story for Lee, who connected with the character of Florine in ways he did not anticipate when he and Boykin began working together during their time at the American Opera Initiative, a commissioning program created by Washington National Opera.
As Boykin began telling Lee the origins of the “Two Corners” story — where her grandmother was from, what her name was – the two realized that not only were their families from the same part of Alabama, but the name ‘Boykin’ was a part of both heritages. The conversation eventually led to the discovery that they were cousins with the same great-great-grandparents.
Attendees of the workshop performance will get a rare opportunity to see the development of opera in real time, including potential stop-and-start adjustments being made during the performance. This creative process in action will culminate with Finger Lakes Opera putting on the world premiere production in Rochester in August 2024.
“Two Corners” is FLO’s first commissioned opera, a project the company was inspired to take on in the wake of George Floyd’s murder while in the custody of Minnesota police in 2020. The newly formed Black Opera Alliance issued an eight-point call-to-action thereafter for company members of Opera America, requesting that professional opera companies demonstrate a commitment to being anti-racist in their work with a “Pledge for Racial Equity and Systemic Change in Opera.”
Finger Lakes Opera’s development and eventual premiere of “Two Corners” is a part of that commitment. The opera is also a transparent, bold challenge for the Rochester community to come to terms with its history of racial injustice.
“The opera itself is set in Alabama around the time of desegregating schools,” FLO’s Director of Communications and Community Engagement Gwen Paker said. “And while we don't have explicit segregation in Rochester, this city has such a devastating history of redlining and racial inequity.” She cited the school district boundary between Pittsford schools and Rochester City School District, one of the most economically segregated in the entire country, as a current example of the effects of racism. She said BOA’s good-faith challenge to American opera companies gave FLO “more fire in our bellies to do more and do better.”
Casting singers of color is the first step toward achieving racial equity in opera. FLO will also present Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘Aida’ August 11 and 13 at the Auditorium Theatre, with Black Rochester soprano Elena O’Connor in the title role.
“These are, from our perspective, the bare minimum things,” said Paker. “And so, we're really happy about ‘Two Corners’ being more than that. We're hoping to add new stories while also telling the stories we all know and love in a more sensitive and appropriate light."
Daniel J. Kushner is an arts writer at CITY.