Letters That You Will Not Get: Women’s Voices from the Great War
2022 WORLD PREMIERE AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING ONE WEEK ONLY
November 11 – 18 | Free with Registration
Registration opens November 1
In honor of Veterans Day, The American Opera Project is proud to release the film of the 2022 world premiere of Letters That You Will Not Get: Women’s Voices from the Great War at Brooklyn’s Irondale Center this past August. Letters will be available to stream on YouTube for one week only. Free with registration. Suggested donation of $10.
Letters That You Will Not Get: Women's Voices from the Great War, by composer Kirsten Volness and co-librettists Susan Werbe and Kate Holland, gives voice to American, British, European, Asian, African and Caribbean women affected by WWI through a series of vignettes that share their responses to the war—from enthusiasm to resignation; support to opposition; the war’s beginning to its end. Combining powerful contemporary music with excerpts from women’s writings on both sides of the conflict, Letters tells the story of the Great War as experienced by the women who lived through it.
Composed by Kirsten Volness
Libretto by Kate Holland and Susan Werbe
Kate Bergstrom, Stage Director
Mila Henry, Music Director
Sara Brown, Co-Set Designer
An-Lin Dauber, Costume Designer / Co-Set Designer
Masha Tsimring, Co-Lighting Designer
Krista Smith, Co-Lighting Designer
Stefania Bulbarella, Projections Designer
CAST
Maria Maxfield, Soprano (Woman 1)
Jessica Sandidge, Soprano (Woman 2)
Sarah Beckham-Turner, Soprano (Woman 3)
Caitlin McKechney, Mezzo-soprano (Woman 4)
Tesia Kwarteng, Mezzo-soprano (Woman 5)
Tharanga Goonetilleke, Soprano (Woman 6)
QUINTET
Andie Tanning, Violin I
Sunny Sheu, Violin II
Tia Allen, Viola
Titilayo Ayangade, Cello
Eleonore Oppenheim, Double Bass
Caitlin McKechney, Associate Producer
Becca Pickett, Production Stage Manager
Alyssa Van Gorder, Production Manager
Analiese Puzon, Asst. Stage Manager / Asst. Production Manager
Kamilla Arku, Rehearsal Pianist
Rosamund Dyer, Production Assistant
The Women of Letters
Developed and premiered by The American Opera Project. The development of Letters That You Will Not Get: Women's Voices from the Great War is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Recording of the 2022 World Premiere of Letters is made possible in part by the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University.
Letters That You Will Not Get is made possible through the generous leadership gifts of Lauren Adelman, Carrie Baldwin-Sayre, John Bates, Christina Bott Murphy, Marni Davis, Pegeen Rubinstein, Barbara Suter, Jean Telljohann, Denise VanLeuven, and the late Honorable Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.