Mark Schubin

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s only full-length opera, “Thelma,” premiered a century after his death. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Duke Ellington got the idea for his opera “Queenie Pie” in the 1930s and worked on it until his death in 1974. Marc Bolin completed the opera, and it was first performed in 2008. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Anthony Davis is known as a composer of Black-history operas, but he also wrote on Jewish and Native-American themes as well as incidental music for the 1993 production of “Angels in America” and a musical about Elvis. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

The Negro Ensemble Company’s 1971 production of “Sheba,” composed by Harold Alexander, featured 14th-century Ethiopian text. #BlackOperaHistory #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

“Don't Tread on Me: A Century of Racism,” by Kashimana Ahua & Khary Jackson, premiered at Minnesota Opera in 2021. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

“Blake,” composed by Leslie Adams, is loosely based on a novel about the lives of enslaved people on the eve of the U.S. Civil War. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Regina Baiocchi’s opera “Gbeldahoven: No One’s Child” is about a real collaboration between Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes on a play that was never produced. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Saka Acquaye’s Ghanaian folk opera “Obadzeng” toured the Soviet Union in 1961 with a cast of 50 after a command performance for Kwame Nkruma. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Soprano Ruby Elzy was born on this date in 1908. She was personally selected by George Gershwin to create the role of Serena in “Porgy and Bess” and sang it more than 800 times before her death at age 35. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

“Our Boys,” by composer Cleophas Adderley Jr. and librettists Winston Saunders and Philip Burrows, is considered the first Bahamian grand opera. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Commissioned by LA Opera & composed by Michael Abels, “Homies & Popz” tells the true story of the Compton Cricket Club of the same name. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Errollyn Wallen, appointed Master of the King’s Music by Charles III, composed a series of operas collectively called “Another America.” #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Trilogy: An Opera Company is dedicated to opera by Black composers and diverse artistic voices. They have performed the opera “Robeson” by Adolphus Hailstork and Shauneille Perry. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

The Black Opera Research Network began publishing the Journal of Black Opera and Music Theatre late last year. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Happy Valentine’s Day! “The Anonymous Lover” composed by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, with libretto by Desfontaines-Lavallée, is, as best we know, his only surviving complete opera. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Bode Omojola, in “Opera is African,” points to pre-colonial Yorùbá Agbégijó, dating back at least to the 14th century. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka wrote in 1999, “Most Nigerians of my generation were weaned on opera….” #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

“Margaret Garner,” an opera about a runaway enslaved person, has a libretto written by Toni Morrison. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

Commissioned by Lyric Opera of Chicago and Houston Grand Opera, “Factotum,” by Will Liverman and DJ King Rico, updates the “Barber of Seville” story to a South Side barber shop. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

“Omar,” with music by Michael Abels and Rhiannon Giddens & libretto by Giddens, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music. About an enslaved Muslim in South Carolina, it had its premiere there. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera

[Mark Schubin @TVMark358]

“The Snowy Day,” with music by Joel Thompson & libretto by Andrea Davis Pinkney, is based on the children’s book about a Black child experiencing his first snowfall. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackAtTheOpera