Opera Theatre of Saint Louis To Premiere THIS HOUSE In May

This summer, This House, a new opera by Ricky Ian Gordon, Lynn Nottage, and Ruby Aiyo Gerber, will receive its world premiere at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as part of the company's landmark 50th season.

Performances take place at the Loretto-Hilton Center on May 31 and June 5, 11, 13, 21, and 29, conducted by OTSL Principal Conductor Daniela Candillari and directed by James Robinson. The opera is based on a play Gerber wrote as a student at Brown University and marks her first professional collaboration with her mother, Lynn Nottage. It is also the second opera by Nottage and Gordon, following Intimate Apparel, which premiered at Lincoln Center Theater in 2022.

Set in a Harlem brownstone occupied by multiple generations of the Walker family since the 1920s, This House centers on Zoe Walker, who returns home after years away and asks her mother, Ida, and her ailing brother, Lindon, for permission to renovate the dilapidated building. But Ida and Lindon cannot let go of the past. The house is their entire world, with every room full of ghostly voices, painful memories, and hidden truths about the family's legacy. As those secrets come to light, Zoe begins to realize they are deeper and more profound than she ever imagined.

The cast for This House features soprano Adrienne Danrich as Ida, the matriarch of the Walker family, mezzo-soprano Briana Hunter as her daughter Zoe, and baritone Justin Austin as her son Lindon. Baritone Christian Pursell sings the role of Lindon's lover Thomas, and tenor Brad Bickhardt sings the role of Zoe's husband Glenn, while tenor Sankara Harouna is Ida's husband Milton, soprano Aundi Marie Moore is her sister Lucy, and tenor Victor Robinson performs the role of Uncle Percy. Soprano Brandie Inez Sutton portrays Young Ida, and mezzo-soprano Krysty Swann appears as Ida's mother Beulah.

The libretto, adapted by Nottage and Gerber, draws from their own relationship and shared history. Nottage noted that she and Gerber dealt with themes of intergenerational love and trauma. “A daughter grappling with her legacy, a daughter grappling with her relationship to her mother, a daughter trying to decide if she wants to take this gift that her mother has offered her. Embedded in the themes we're exploring is our relationship.”

In an April 2023 interview for T: The New York Times Magazine, Gerber reflected on working alongside her two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning mother and expressed deep admiration and respect for her, mixed with a desire to carve out her own voice and path as a writer: “Collaborating with [her] has clarified something for me: that the older I get, the more I'm able to see [her] worth as an artist, and I'm proud of it. But I want to be my own writer — and that's possible.” 

The creative relationship between Gordon and Nottage began when she served on the judging panel that awarded him an OBIE for his song cycle Orpheus and Euridice. Gordon later approached Nottage about adapting her hugely successful play, Intimate Apparel, into an opera. “I never dreamed it would find another form,” said Nottage in a discussion at Columbia University, “until Ricky Ian Gordon, this wonderful composer, approached me, and said, do you want to write an opera?” Intimate Apparel was just weeks into previews in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly brought the production to a halt. It resumed its run in the winter of 2022 and was a New York Times Critic's Pick, with critic Jesse Green calling it “A joy to hear!”

To post a comment, you must register and login.