(Credit: Brittany Lesavoy Smith Photography)

Few organizations have done as much to illuminate the possibilities of contemporary opera than American Opera Initiative (AOI). The program, founded in 2012 by Francesca Zambello, is a one-year lab of sorts for aspiring opera composers and librettists to create, workshop, rehearse, and premiere a short opera. Amongst the works to premiere under the program are “Night Trip,” “Bridge for Three,” “Pepito,” and 75 Miles,” all getting picked up by other opera companies from around the United States.

At the helm of the organization is Kelley Rourke, a librettist who has been commissioned and performed by such organizations as the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, English National Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Welsh National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Parallèle, American Composers Orchestra, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, among many others.

OperaWire spoke with Rourke about the 2025 program of American Opera Initiative, which will also be presented in New York City for the first time ever.

OW: I would like to hear a bit about what makes this year’s three operas unique and special? 

Kelley Rourke: Each of the teams has imagined a world that is highly specific and somewhat disorienting. We meet an investor, a biologist and an organizer trapped inside a bioengineered whale; a middle-aged woman, an orphaned girl, and a companion the girl builds from toxic waste after a catastrophic flood; and young men who come to believe that they must unleash their inner “wolves” to find acceptance and love. 

For me, these operas are an invitation to empathize with characters who, on the surface, are living lives very different from mine. The situations may seem strange, but the emotional landscapes are 100% relatable, and emotion is what opera does best. When we talk about the power of art to heal divisions, I think it’s important to understand the power inherent to each discipline. Journalism marshals facts and presents arguments; opera, when it’s working, gives you a visceral experience of a stranger’s interior state.

I don’t think there has ever been an AOI cohort with this breadth of artistic experience. Beyond their opera-specific experience, each of them has brought at least one other artistic specialty, ranging from installation art to fronting an indie rock band. It’s a group of individuals with massive talent, tremendous imagination, and wide-open hearts.

OW: AOI streamlines the process of collaborating on libretto and score to workshopping, rehearsing, and presenting the world premiere of a new opera. What are the keys to pulling this off in one year?

KR: You’ve noted some of the key milestones in the creation of an opera, but an unmentioned first step is probably the most important one. Composer-librettist teams begin by “pitching” three story ideas to mentors and staff advisors, who help them evaluate each idea’s potential and pitfalls. First, why does this story want to be an opera? What will music add? Second, is this story an appropriate size and scale for a 20-minute opera that relies on acoustic instruments and voices as the main tools of storytelling? Choosing the right story is more than half the battle. 

OW: Talking about contemporary opera, what are the keys to creating new works? In what direction would you like to see opera evolve to further develop the repertory? 

KR: I believe the best way to breathe new life into an art form is to get some new voices into the room—artists who have some appreciation of the art form’s historical strengths, but who bring fresh ideas about how to exploit them. 

AOI draws a larger and more impressive pool of applicants each year, and the review process is one that fills me with both hope and despair—hope, because there are so many brilliant artists passionate about contributing to this art form, and despair, because there simply aren’t enough opportunities for them all. 

Every year, AOI brings in a new team of mentors to collaborate on the selection and development process, which I believe is one of the major strengths of the program: we are not trying to perpetuate one person’s vision for how opera should evolve in the 21st century. We’re looking for singular artists and surrounding them with experienced folks who will serve as sounding boards as they make work that only they know how to make.

OW: AOI’s success year in and year out is also predicated on its ability to connect with audiences. What are the keys for building an audience for contemporary opera?

KR: An idea or storyline is often what gets folks in the door, but a visceral emotional experience is what brings people back. The best thing we can do to promote contemporary opera is give talented artists the support they need to do their best work.

For AOI, it’s useful that we present three bite-sized operas as part of a single evening. Not everyone is going to fall in love with every opera—there are plenty of canonic “great” works that don’t do it for me, and contemporary opera is not a monolith. But if we can give listeners at least one transformative experience over the course of the evening, I believe they’ll be back for more. 

OW: What do you expect from the expansion of the program to New York? 

KR: While AOI is highly regarded in the industry, a lot of folks have never made it down to DC for AOI performances because they’re in New York for the annual PROTOTYPE Festival and/or OPERA America’s New Works Forum—two key showcases of new opera. By bringing our artists to NYC, we become part of that national conversation. I hope this NYC presence will lead to more opportunities not only for our composer-librettist teams, but also for the dazzling performers from the Cafritz Young Artist Program.

I can’t think of a better partner than Kaufman Music Center (KMC). Not only is Merkin Hall an excellent venue for vocal chamber music, KMC is a complete musical ecosystem, equally dedicated to presenting today’s leading artists and nurturing the future of music. Beyond connecting WNO artists with the larger NYC opera community, I hope that some Kaufman regulars will become more interested in new opera.

OW: Speaking about your work as a librettist – how do you pick your stories? What is your process?

KR: Sometimes I have stories handed to me by a commissioner, but when I get to choose, I ask myself the same questions I ask AOI teams: Why does this story want to be an opera, not a film or play? How will music—and especially, how will my collaborator’s musical voice—add dimension and impact to the story, the characters, the themes? What are the forces at my disposal, and how can I structure the work for maximum impact using those forces? And, perhaps most importantly—is this a story I love enough to live with for a year or more of my life?

OW: You’ve worked with a number of different composers. How has your work with each of them informed your process or approach to writing librettos? 

KR: I like to think I write differently for every composer I work with. A libretto is an invitation to a composer—an invitation to do what they do best. Some composers’ gifts will shine brightest if they are handed a tightly rhymed lyric; others work best with a text that is built for fragmentation and repetition. Working with a new collaborator is a test of my writing skills, but even more, it’s a chance to hone my skills as a collaborator, to practice questioning and listening and responding. 

OW: What are some of your upcoming projects?

KR: I’m in the middle of rehearsals for Eat the Document, an opera with music by John Glover that will premiere as part of the 2025 PROTOTYPE Festival in NYC. This holiday season I’ve been juggling revisions/revivals of three works for family audiences: WNO commissioned an expanded version of “Jungle Book,” which I wrote with composer Kamala Sankaram; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden brought back an adaptation of “Hansel and Gretel” that premiered last year; and a version of Massenet’s “Cendrillon” originally commissioned by the Met will play at Opera Australia through March, conducted by WNO’s outgoing Principal Conductor, Evan Rogister. I have two other exciting projects on my desk that will be announced in the coming year. 

At this moment, I’m working with next year’s AOI mentor team to finalize the cohort for 2025-2026. Our “short list” is full of some amazing talents—I can’t wait to see what kind of stories they bring to the stage.