Fort Worth Opera has announced a new collaborative partnership with Mexico City-born artist Laura Anderson Barbata, for the world premiere of composer-librettist Rachel J. Peters’s dark comedy, “Companionship.”

The renowned Brooklyn-based artist, performer, and author has constructed the  world of baker Lesley Sinclair and her dysfunctional family for the upcoming work.

In a press release, Barbata said, “I’ve been fortunate to work in Fort Worth many times, and am always so impressed by the outstanding quality and a vast number of arts organizations. As the production designer for Companionship, I have the wonderful privilege of being able to think of all the physical design elements as one, to bring to life the beautiful libretto and music by Rachel Peters from a compelling adaptation of Arthur Phillips’ short story.”

Barbata has worked in the social realm and has initiated projects in the Amazon of Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Norway, and the USA. Among them is her ongoing project The Repatriation of Julia Pastrana, initiated in 2004, about the 19th-century indigenous Mexican woman exhibited in life and death for her excessive hair. She has also worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, El Museo de Arte Moderno, México D.F., and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany.

“Companionship” is set to be performed on May 1, 3,  and 5, at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden Auditorium during the company’s 2019 Festival.