Lyric Opera 2025-2026 Issue 11 - safronia

19 | Lyric Opera of Chicago Grew up playing church. Out West. Chicago. During a time when [on any given Sunday] the neighborhood of North Austin would be scored by The Winans, The Whispers, and Mahalia/Millie Jackson. Activated on the staircase of a finished basement apartment. Me on tenor on the top step. (My sisters) Angela & Carseda on alto on the middle steps. Then Shana (the baby) on soprano on the first step. Along with whatever cousin who would be over to spend the night, we chose the songs we wanted to sing the lead on &/or direct. We would be the home & visiting choir. Sing the A & B selections [of both choirs]. We would also play shout. But deeper than our play, we would sing, shout, preach &/or direct in the way of the person we were pretending to be. Sister Roscoe had a distinct move in her praise. Auntie Jeffie Mae had not only a particular movement, she also had an unique roar. Her Thank you Jesus could shake the walls of a church house & steeple. & Angela had it down pat! I bring this up because the recalling of this play, I now have a solidified marker of where my life in opera-making, singing & building began. This opera that woke me up out of sleep one morning, is play-church & jook-joint. The preparation of holiday dinner. No room in the house spared of music. Black music. Soul Train, Jubilee Showcase, Curtis Mayfield. Fry anything while Aretha Franklin is singing Angel , & I promise you it will taste better. Remembering all of this makes me pause at the moment these two nights at Lyric Opera House is. This moment is more than the premiere of the story based on a family’s journey from Lexington, Mississippi to Chicago, it is a testament to the rock & roll, plus the praise & soul that scored the tribulations and triumphs of an American family. This moment is about the way a kitchen becomes a concert hall during a card game. This moment is about how the shower becomes the stage for an aria. This moment is about how opera, as a genre and institution isn’t rich &White (or at least it shouldn’t be). When we talk a classical American songbook, we must understand the songs in that book come with many skins, tongues & stories. This new work of safronia couldn’t be set in the day & time it is & not sound like the music the bookers listened to &/or sang. Therefore this new work that is safronia seeks to present opera not only as a hallelujah dance hall, but it also presents opera as everyday as weather. As close as coat. As near as friend. Myself, along with Lyric, Tim, Paul, de deacon board & all the other artists involved, that will take the audience (congregation) to that basement staircase. Talk about full- circle. Talk about a wheel in the middle of a wheel. Leave here tonight with the testimony that you saw a door kicked open. Familiarize yourself with the plush seats & the gold & red of the walls. We (family) are in here now. And will be many more times to come. ii. so children, this is not a story of ghosts. safronia invites praise into the art district. speaking a language that announces american classical music is what wonder, armstrong, richard, leadbelly, watts, wolf & so many more of us compose. this is dramatic story-telling with the music blk southerners brought with them up north. from their hearts, mouths & limbs, so that they could sink their feet into a zion. remain spine erect & breath aligned. this opera is not about dead people. this opera is about how we live. one song in front of the other.