An epic, groundbreaking opera by a recent composition graduate from the Frost School of Music had a wildly successful premiere this past weekend, earning rave reviews and national attention from the opera world.
The Cincinnati Opera presented composer Kevin Day’s “Lalovavi” on July 9 and 11, the culmination of a years-long journey in which it commissioned, developed, and gave a lavish production of a pioneering Afrofuturist opera by the 30-year-old composer. “Lalovavi” electrified the audiences that packed Cincinnati’s historic Music Hall with a sweeping, heroic tale that combined elements reminiscent of “The Black Panther,” “Avatar,” Greek mythology, superhero stories, science fiction, “The Magic Flute,” and more.
Persephone (Brittany Olivia Logan) discovers the wilds outside of Atlas after her escape from the city. Photo by Philip Groshong.
The ambitious production is the first of three commissioned works in the Cincinnati Opera’s $6 million Black Opera Project, formed to present new operas by Black creative teams centered on Black American joy, resilience, and creativity. “Lalovavi” garnered coverage by NPR, PBS, and the Wall Street Journal, and drew representatives from opera companies and national organizations, including the CEO of Opera America and the Black Administrators of Opera, as well as renowned mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, whose foundation was one of the piece’s funders. They were attracted by a vivid new take on the art form and the possibilities it presented for the future.
“Lalovavi” ushers opera into a new era,” said a review from the League of Cincinnati Theaters. “It is ambitious, visually spectacular, emotionally sincere, surprisingly funny, hopeful, and, yes, joyful. More importantly, it expands the possibilities of what grand opera can be in the twenty-first century for audiences of every background. By premiering “Lalovavi,” the Cincinnati Opera and the Black Opera Project open the door for many more stories waiting to be told.”
It was a monumental achievement five years in the making for Day, a 2025 PhD graduate of the Frost School’s Composition program who had never composed an opera before.
“This is the biggest project of my life,” said Day, who created part of “Lalovavi” for his dissertation. “I am proud that I was chosen to do this, proud that we had the opportunity to do it in a huge way.”
“This is ultimately a show about joy, about overcoming obstacles, about embracing the path you have and becoming who you were meant to be. That’s what I try to exemplify and bring to life in the music.”
The Cincinnati Opera, the second-oldest troupe in North America, took a chance on Day and his librettist, Tifara Brown, a young poet also writing her first opera, supporting them with years of development and workshops. It was a bet that paid off handsomely.
“We were working with two first-timers,” said Evans Mirageas, the opera’s Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director. “Looking back, we could have made it easier. But it was the best decision. The creative and the support team all learned what to do together, because what we were doing had never been done before, with all the joys and bumps in the road that entailed. It’s a journey we’ve all taken with delight.”
That journey started in 2019, when Morris Robinson, an acclaimed bass singer and artistic advisor to the troupe, which was starring in its production of “Porgy and Bess,” approached the leadership with the idea for the Black Opera Project. He was inspired by the cultural impact of the hit Afrofuturist film “The Black Panther” and by a longing to see new operas that tell African American stories driven by heroism, joy, and agency rather than pain and struggle.
“We knew there was a critical need to create and develop works that represented the vastness and beauty of the African American experience,” said Robinson when “Lalovavi” was announced. “Cincinnati Opera bought into this vision.”
Morris brought Day on in 2021, after hearing the Fort Worth Symphony play Day’s three-minute piece “Lightspeed.” It was enough for Morris to message a stunned Day on Instagram, asking if he’d like to compose an opera. When Mirageas asked Day to recommend a librettist, Day suggested Brown, a friend from his undergraduate days at Texas Christian University, who had a single published book of poetry.
Day, who has composed hundreds of pieces for wind band, orchestra, and other ensembles, had never considered opera. But he loved choral singing, which had helped him overcome a childhood stutter. He was a longtime fan of Afrofuturism, and an artist eager and unafraid to try new things—an attitude fostered by his time at the Frost School, where he was encouraged to bring his many influences—wind band, jazz, R&B, hip hop, experimental music, and more—into his classical compositions.
“I was trying to break into the orchestral world,” Day said. “Opera was never on my radar.”
“This project definitely changed me and changed my trajectory for my career. This project forced me to dig deeper in terms of my emotions, in terms of how I write and the way I write.”
The Cincinnati Opera engaged Kamille Howard, an experienced opera director, who also served as dramaturge and mentor for the two neophytes. It was Howard who led them from a realistic story to the world-building of “Lalovavi.” She said, “Why don’t we pivot to something more based in the fantastic? When do we as a people get a chance to escape?” said Day.
The Cincinnati Opera brought in other members of the group’s artistic leadership and, as the premiere approached, musical leaders, a choreographer, set and costume designers. It was a major institutional investment of time, human capital, and financial capital.
Brown, whose poetic gift was praised in reviews, came up with the idea of incorporating Tut, a little-known language created by enslaved African-Americans as a form of underground communication, adding an element of history and legend. “Lalovavi” is Tut for “love.”
Set 400 years into a post-apocalyptic future, “Lalovavi” tells the story of Persephone, daughter of a Titan, the despotic ruler of the sealed city of Atlas, who plots to exploit his daughter’s rare gene for immortality. Persephone escapes Atlas with her nursemaid, Dinah, to discover a lush world inhabited by the rebel Nunewak people, where she reunites with her exiled mother and embraces her destiny to lead the liberation of Atlas and forge a future governed by love and compassion rather than conquest and oppression.
(Robinson played Titan, while Persephone was performed by Brittany Olivia Logan, a young singer in her first major role whom a Cincinnati Business Courier review praised as “simply stunning.”)
“The more I read what Tifara was writing, the more I began to feel like I was writing a movie score,” said Day. “The music is more rooted in cinematic classical music, but with my harmonic language, which is rooted in jazz and R&B.”
Mahler, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky were inspirations, as were film composers like John Williams. So was Murray Gold’s music for the TV show “Dr. Who” when David Tennant was starring, which Day watched avidly growing up. “It is sweeping, epic, with lots of energy and memorable melodies,” said Day. “My sound already has a lot of those qualities, and as I was composing, that was on my mind.” (He also included opera’s first euphonium, which he played in wind bands growing up.)
“Lalovavi” heroine Persephone (Brittany Olivia Logan, center with arm outstretched) is joined by her nursemaid Dinah (Adrienne Danrich), her mother Niamara (Talise Trevigne), and her beloved Lucian (Terrence Chin-Loy), to lead the Nunewak warriors. Photo by Philip Groshong.
Mirageas praised Day’s musical prowess and ability to learn a complex narrative musical form on the fly, as well as his flexibility in things like rewriting an aria to suit a singer’s range, or reworking a passage where 24 choristers exit and return in different costumes two minutes later.
“If the composers of the Marvel movie soundtracks and Star Wars got together that would be Kevin,” said Mirageas. “He has a cinematic gift. He writes with sweep and passion and tenderness and a very discerning ear for what works for singing voices. He was capable of doing the hardest thing for a composer, which is to write for more than one voice at a time. There are duets, trios, and quartets that left my jaw on the floor. Kevin instantly grasped that it is a way to compress the action and to have several ideas happening at once. It’s the hardest thing for an opera composer to learn, and he got it from the outset.”
The League of Cincinnati Theaters review called Day’s score “unmistakably contemporary. Rather than imitating nineteenth-century opera, it embraces cinematic orchestration, rhythmic vitality, jazz influences, moments of purposeful dissonance and soaring melodies while remaining thoroughly operatic.” A Wall Street Journal reviewcited his “lushly orchestrated score, sweetly tonal throughout” and “appealing arias.”
Lalovavi’s audience members, many of them African-American fans engaged by years of community outreach and audience development, reacted with wild enthusiasm and standing ovations. “The buzz in the hall was electric,” said the Courier. “The audience was riveted throughout… laughed out loud in humorous moments and cheered lustily as good prevailed over evil.”
The second work in the Black Opera Project, “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” a tribute to the Congressman and civil rights icon, will premiere in 2027. It will be followed in 2028 by “Good Bones,” with music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Abels, known for his Jordan Peele film scores, and a libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames, based on his play.
“Our first goal with this project is to tell great stories which will appeal to anyone,” said Mirageas. “Lalovavi” is about the struggle between those who have power and those who don’t, and about the strength of a young heroine as she runs for her freedom and frees her fellow citizens. It’s universal.”
Day is honored to have played a part in telling that story. “I know where I am in the history, the lineage of Black composers,” he said. “I know a lot of my predecessors could not get their operas or their orchestral works performed. Part of me feels the weight of this moment, knowing this will have an impact for many years, and will be a contribution to culture in what I hope will be a very impactful way.”
