American Opera Project to Stage LETTERS AND THE LOST VOICES OF WOMEN IN WORLD WAR I

On Monday, March 21st at 7pm CT / 8pm ET, The American Opera Project (AOP) and The National WWI Museum and Memorial will give voice to the women of WWI and explore their (many times overlooked) contributions and cultural representations during a free, livestreamed presentation.

The event will feature readings of newly transcribed letters from the National WWI Museum and Memorial's archives, selections from the AOP-developed opera 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, as well as a keynote talk by Jennifer Orth-Veillon, author, scholar and curator of the WWrite Blog. The event, produced by Emitha LLC, will be moderated by award-winning journalist Kelly Kennedy, Managing Editor for The War Horse and U.S. Army veteran.

The event will feature performances and readings by the National WWI Museum and Memorial's Curator of Education and Interpretation Lora Vogt and AOP's Artistic Director Mila Henry, as well as Sarah Beckham-Turner (New York City Opera), Angel Desai (Company, Tony-Award winning Broadway revival), Briana Hunter (Seattle Opera), Tesia Kwarteng (Washington National Opera), Maria Lindsey (Opera Omaha), Caitlin McKechney (Florida Grand Opera), and Jessica Sandidge (Metropolitan Opera).

Letters That You Will Not Get: Women's Voice from the Great War was developed by AOP and will receive its premiere in Brooklyn, NY on July 28, 2022 in an AOP production directed by Kate Bergstrom with music direction by Mila Henry. The opera, written 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.

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, and 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.

For more information, or to reserve your ticket, visit https://bit.ly/wwiletters.

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