Underwater Unrest: 96 Hours at The Atlanta Opera

Premiere of Forsyth County is Flooding (with the Joy of Lake Lanier) by Marcus Norris and Adamma Ebo (2022 Grand prize winners): ) l-r: Andrew Gilstrap, baritone; Kevin Thompson, bass-baritone; Minka Wiltz, mezzo-soprano; as Mayor John Johns, Church Jenkins, and Odella Syrus (photo by Raftermen)

360° of Opera recently had the privilege of attending The Atlanta Opera’s third annual 96-Hour Opera Festival. The festival’s centerpiece was the eagerly awaited world premiere of Forsyth County is Flooding (with the Joy of Lake Lanier), a genre-bending, thought-provoking dark comedy that heralds an exciting new era for opera in the 21st century.

Composer and lyricist Dr. Marcus Norris and librettist Adamma Ebo won the 96-Hour Opera Project competition in 2022 with their bold vision for this work, earning a coveted commission to bring it to life. They drew inspiration from the disturbing history and paranormal lore surrounding Lake Lanier, a man-made reservoir that submerged a largely Black community in 1950s Georgia.

Musically, Forsyth County is Flooding daringly stretched the stylistic boundaries of opera. “I chose saxophone as part of my instrumentation, modeled after what we do with South Side Symphony,” Norris explained. “There’s also definitely some Gospel influence, which serves the spiritual nature of the story.” Deftly weaving together threads of jazz, R&B, gospel, and classical styles, Norris’s dynamic score proved the perfect vehicle for Ebo’s incisive, irreverent libretto. The story follows an unlikely crew — a witch incognito as a mayoral assistant, an overconfident detective, and ghostly local residents past and present — investigating the sinister puddles infiltrating the county.

Premiere of Forsyth County is Flooding (with the Joy of Lake Lanier) by Marcus Norris and Adamma Ebo (2022 Grand prize winners); AC Wilson as Oscar

Under Tinashe Kajese-Bolden‘s imaginative direction, the one-act opera unfolded with wit, grit, and a touch of magical realism on the intimate Ray Charles Performing Arts Center stage at Morehouse College. Evocative video projections and billowing curtains conjured the eerie underwater sequences, while poetic choreography by Dell Howlett viscerally embodied themes of racial trauma and reckoning. “Perhaps it’s time we revisit the theory that the Lake may really be haunted,” Norris reflected. “When the water starts popping up all over town in Forsyth County is Flooding, our characters must get to the bottom of this mystery. Their lives depend on it. Maybe ours do too.”

Premiere of Forsyth County is Flooding (with the Joy of Lake Lanier) by Marcus Norris and Adamma Ebo (2022 Grand prize winners) l-r: Andrew Gilstrap, baritone; Minka Wiltz, mezzo-soprano; Kevin Thompson, bass-baritone as Mayor John Johns, Odella Syrus, and Church Jenkins (photo by Raftermen)

Minka Wiltz’s powerhouse performance as the shape-shifting witch Odella Syrus was a revelation. With her vast vocal range encompassing legit soprano, chesty alto, and even some masculine-sounding timbres, Wiltz captured the complexity of a paranormal entity torn between vengeance and balance. Andrew Gilstrap as the blustering Mayor John Johns nailed the character’s pompous patter, while Marnie Breckenridge and Ronnita Miller brought pathos as the ghostly frenemies representing dueling perspectives on the county’s sins. Kevin Thompson was appropriately swaggering yet vulnerable as the detective.

Forsyth County is Flooding wasn’t the only adventurous work I encountered at the festival. This year's 96-Hour Opera Project Showcase introduced five dynamic composer-librettist teams selected to create 10-minute operas in just 96 hours, focused on the opportunities and adversities of a future that relies on artificial intelligence (AI). Hailing from richly diverse musical and cultural backgrounds, most were first-time opera creators.

Grand prize winning team of the 96-Hour Opera Festival competition: l-r Kitty Brazelton, composer; Vaibu Mohan, librettist (photo by Raftermen)

Composer Kitty Brazelton and librettist Vaibu Mohan won the Antinori Grand Prize for their work Jala-Smriti – Water Memory, which explores the use of AI to support people with dementia. They will share the $10,000 prize and receive a commission from The Atlanta Opera to create a chamber opera. The runner-up and audience favorite was What is Love? An AI Story by composer Timothy Amukele and librettist Jarrod Lee, which asks if androids can learn to love.

l-r Hanan Davis, mezzo-soprano, and Xiaohan Chen, mezzo-soprano, as Memory Processing Operator (MPO) and Janani, the gardener, in Jala-Smriti – Water Memory by Kitty Brazelton, composer, and Vaibu Mohan, librettist – the grand prize winning entry of the 96-Hour Opera Festival competition at The Atlanta Opera (photo by Raftermen)

The showcase captured the spirit of an initiative that, as The Atlanta Opera’s Director of Community Engagement & Education Jessica Kiger noted, strives to “amplify new voices and new stories in opera.” Kiger shared that her experience has reinforced the value of “collaborating with the community to create meaningful and inclusive opera.” Along with generous financial and professional support, the project provides artists a platform to bring their singular perspectives to the art form. From a poignant meditation on a fading artisan tradition to an exploration of an android struggling to grasp human concepts like creativity and mortality, these shorts tackled an impressive range of themes — AI, cultural preservation, environmental apocalypse — through a kaleidoscope of musical languages and narrative tones.

Both the works-in-progress and the public’s enthusiastic response indicated that The Atlanta Opera is onto something powerful with this model. Kiger expressed her hope that the project will “revitalize our art form, making it more relevant to our community, and writing the next chapter in opera’s history.” I eagerly await future 96-Hour Opera Festival creations like last year’s commission Steele Roots, set to premiere during next year’s festival. In the meantime, I encourage you to check out the rest of The Atlanta Opera’s 2024-25 season.

Creative teams and judges for The Atlanta Opera 96-Hour Opera Festival competition.

Front l-r: (kneeling) Vaibu Mohan, librettist; Kitty Brazelton, composer; Paul Cremo, judge; Carlos Simon, judge; (standing) Andrea Davis Pinkney, host and judge; Camille Love Russell, Atlanta Arts & Culture office; Back l-r: Tazwell Thompson, judge; Evan Williams, composer; Ashlee Haze, librettist; Mo Holmes, librettist; Lauren McCall, composer; George Tsz-Kwan Lam, composer; David Davila, librettist; Timothy Amukele, composer; Jarrod Lee, librettist; Tomer Zvulun, General & Artistic Director; Jessica Kiger, Community Engagement Director (photo by Raftermen)

-written by Chloe Yutong Yang.