Margo Jefferson To Give Keynote Lecture at 2019 Fort Worth Opera Festival

Fort Worth Opera proudly announced today the news that distinguished author, cultural critic, and academic Margo Jefferson will deliver a keynote lecture on The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess at Bass Performance Hall, Saturday, April 27, as part of the opening weekend of the 2019 Fort Worth Opera Festival. Winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for her work at The New York Times, Jefferson's essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications such as The Guardian, Harper's, The Scholar, and New York Magazine. Currently serving as a professor of writing at Columbia University, she was once an arts criticism contributing editor to Vogue and an associate editor for Newsweek and is the award-winning author of Negroland: A Memoir and On Michael Jackson.

"I grew up with Porgy and Bess," said Jefferson. "I've been watching and listening to some form of it since 1959 when the movie came out. I know it as a musical; I know it as an opera. I've charted its course as a much-debated racial and cultural document. I'm very excited about the coming Fort Worth production. Porgy and Bess demands that we, its American audience, live with its contradictions and live up to its complexities. When we do that, it rewards us with its musical glories." As Fort Worth Opera enters our 73rd season here in North Texas, we are honored that Professor Margo Jefferson will be joining us to discuss the enduring legacy of this 84-year-old, American operatic masterpiece.

ABOUT FORT WORTH OPERA: Founded in 1946, Fort Worth Opera is the oldest continually performing opera company in Texas, and one of the 14 oldest opera companies in the United States. The organization has received national attention from critics and audiences alike for its artistic excellence.

FWOpera has taken a leadership role in engaging audiences beyond the operatic stage, while producing cutting-edge, contemporary operas. Beginning in 2017, FWOpera launched the second phase of its landmark, 10-year Opera of the Americas initiative with Noches de Ópera (Nights of Opera), a groundbreaking campaign which introduces powerful operas, each reflecting the diverse cultures of American audiences.

Fort Worth Opera is sponsored in part by awards from The Arts Council of Fort Worth & Tarrant County, The City of Fort Worth, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Additional Fort Worth Opera sponsors include: the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Amon G. Carter Foundation; American Airlines; Art & Seek; Crystelle Waggoner Charitable Trust, Bank of America, Trustee; The Pangburn Foundation, J.P. Morgan Chase, Trustee; the Sid W. Richardson Foundation; and WFAA Channel 8