Composer/Librettist/Professor
ROBESON OPERA
Music by Scott Davenport Richards
Libretto by Scott Davenport Richards and David Cote
Direction/Dramaturgy by Robin Guarino
ROBESON is an epic and inspiring biographical examination of Black singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976). A global superstar of his time, Robeson leveraged his fame to fight on the frontlines for equality. His heroic and uncompromising efforts against fascism and racism worldwide led Robeson to be entangled in the tragic power struggle between the two superpowers of the twentieth century—the United States and the USSR—with his own life and career hanging in the balance. Inspired by historical events, ROBESON also resonates with today’s ongoing fights for social justice.
Inspired by the opera’s setting at a party in Robeson’s 1963 Moscow hotel room, the score combines elements of African American and Russian musical traditions into a fluid fast-paced musical narrative. From drunken midnight rambles through Jazz Age New York with Eugene O’Neill, to Robeson’s tender affair with a married Uta Hagen, through dramatic confrontations with J. Edgar Hoover, Harry Truman, Neo-Nazi Rioters, and the House Un-American Activities Committee, the opera encompasses the historic drama, epic scope, and stark contradictions of Robeson’s astounding life.
