Writing an Opera Is a Wild Thing to Do

I started thinking seriously about this opera about six years ago after watching an HBO documentary called Alabama Snake. It tells the story of Glenn Summerford, a former Pentecostal preacher from Scottsboro who has been denied parole for more than three decades after attempting to murder his wife using the snakes he kept at his church just outside of Sand Mountain. That eventually led me to Dennis Covington’s book Salvation on Sand Mountain, which became the real jumping-off point for the story I ended up adapting.

The plan was to write it in the summer of 2022, but that ended up being the first really busy summer of SouthCoast. I was also at the Walden School in New Hampshire and in Washington State for a month. It just didn’t happen. A few months into that semester, I got the job with the symphony, and the opera took a backseat to a million other projects and obligations.

About a year ago, shortly after Ashley Finkelstein took the job as Executive Director of TVAA, I mentioned the piece in passing. There was interest, and the opportunity felt right. I made a plan to start at Orien in August, during a residency at a Benedictine monastery in upstate New York. The idea was to write from August to December, workshop it with the cast in December, and premiere it in April. I finished it in February and was still making major changes as recently as two weeks ago.

Gretchen, Ben, and Jamie learned all of this and stayed committed through what turned out to be a much steeper learning curve than I expected (writing an opera is a wild thing to do), and I’m incredibly grateful for that. The same goes for the choir and the band, led by my good friend Warren Ertle. None of them really knew what they were signing up for.

Keith and Lilly found out last week that I wanted the stage painted white, along with four white benches, a white pulpit, white hymnals, and a white backdrop and made a remarkable set. Mary has been working on costumes since she got here on Wednesday. And Ethan Franks, who is on a ladder at the Ritz refocusing lights as I write this at 11:30 the night before the premiere.

I really appreciate everyone who made this work.

The opera takes place in a church. A charismatic preacher uses his influence over his congregation to murder his wife. I want anyone who sees it to walk away with their own interpretation. But I also want to be clear about what this piece is not. This is not meant to be a cheap shot at any sect, denomination, or religion. This show is about belief.

We don’t possess beliefs; they possess us. We tie them to who we are, and we will do almost anything to avoid changing them, because they are often not about truth. They are about who we think we are, who we want to be, and how we want to be seen.

That’s a philosophical statement, not a political or theological one. In fact, it might not even be true... It’s just something I believe.