
David T. Little’s ‘What Belongs to You’ Named Best New Opera by MCANA
By David SalazarComposer David T. Little’s “What Belongs to You” has been named Best New Opera by the Music Critics Association of North America.
The awards committee featured Heidi Waleson, George Loomis, Arthur Kaptainis, John Rockwell, and Alex Ross and the opera will be honored on May 30, 2025 at the MCANA annual meeting in Montréal.
“Based on Garth Greenwell’s eponymous 2016 novel, ‘What Belongs to You’ is a poetic and sensitive work that conveys the chaos of adult desire and the traumas of gay childhood,” said the Awards Committee per an official press release. “It takes the form of an extended monologue by an American schoolteacher in Bulgaria, who falls into an obsessive affair with a rough-living male prostitute named Mitko. The text is often raw and occasionally shocking, yet Little’s score is perhaps his most refined creation to date, blending recollections of Schubert and Britten with more experimental textures. The writing for voice is elegant throughout, the instrumentation intensely atmospheric. The final scene, in which the narrator describes meeting a mortally ill Mitko for the last time, packs classic operatic force, with a shivering quotation from Schubert’s ‘Der Leiermann’ to close.”
The opera is written for tenor and sinfonietta and premiered on Sept. 26, 2024 at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond. Mark Morris directed and Karim Sulayman was the tenor lead alongside conductor Alan Pierson and Alarm Will Sound.
“The opera follows a long and tumultuous relationship, drawing on universal themes such as the search for oneself, the desire to belong, loneliness, and heartbreak. It looks back to look forward, taking inspiration in mysterious, erotic, and devotional music of Britten, Dowland, Monteverdi, Valentini, Schubert, and Grisey, and progresses in a series of distinct images which allow the meaning to gradually accumulate. Together, these allow it to feel both contemporary and connected to the past,” says a description of the work per the press release.
In response to winning the award, Little noted that the piece was a passion project and that the win was “deeply meaningful.” He went on to thank a series of supporters and artists who were a part of the project, including Alan Pierson, Karim Sulayman, Mark Morris, Maile Okamura, Paul Brohan, Nancy Umanoff, Gavin Chuck, Annie Toth, “and the extraordinary musicians of Alarm Will Sound; Linda H. and Richard N. Claytor, Ph.D., and Andrew Martin-Weber; everyone at Boosey & Hawkes and Primo Artists; my parents, and my partner Eileen Mack; and of course, Garth Greenwell, whose trust in allowing me to adapt his work has meant the world to me.”
The opera will be released via Cantaloupe Music and is being scheduled for future performances in the U.S. and Europe.
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