PARMA Recordings has announced that an album of Richard Thompson’s new chamber opera “The Mask in the Mirror” will be released on Feb. 8, 2019.

Over three acts, the audience becomes acquainted with revered 20th century African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and the adversity he had struggled to overcome in his short life. Despite finding literary and financial success, the scars of his childhood, the “glass ceiling” of his time, and his possible battle with bipolar disorder would lead him straight into the open arms of alcoholism and put his marriage to the test.

Inspired by copious letters exchanged between Dunbar and his wife, novelist Alice Ruth Moore, Thompson’s historically accurate opera “removes the masks of fame and social identity to investigate the psychological realities of the people underneath.”

“The Mask in the Mirror” is a production of The Sanaa Opera Project, and stars Cameo Humes as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Angela L. Owens as Alice Ruth Moore. Also featured in the cast are Lindsay Patterson Abdou, Leberta Lorál, Natalie Mann, Roland Mills, and John Burt Polhamus. The ensemble is led under the baton of Dr. Stephen Tucker.