On June 18, 2024, Cincinnati Opera will host Creators Forum, a rare and insightful conversation with the creative teams behind two operas that the company has commissioned as part of its groundbreaking artistic initiative, The Black Opera Project.

The first program of its kind, The Black Opera Project seeks to illuminate the resilient spirit and vibrant heritage of the Black American experience through the development of three new operas by Black artists.

The featured works to be discussed at the Creators Forum will include “Lalovavi,” an Afrofuturist opera that will receive its world premiere at Cincinnati Opera in June 2025, and “Good Trouble: The Boy from Troy,” inspired by the life of American civil rights leader and politician John Lewis, premiering at Cincinnati Opera in 2026.

The artists that will participate in “Lalovavi” include composer Kevin Day, librettist Tifara Brown, stage director and dramaturg Kimille Howard, and conductor Kevin Miller. Meanwhile, from “Good Trouble: The Boy from Troy,” composer Maria Thompson Corley, librettist Diana Solomon-Glover, and stage director and dramaturg Timothy Douglas will participate.

Evans Mirageas, the company’s Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director, will moderate.