As part of their Springboard Season, Wakefield, Rhode Island’s Contemporary Theater Company, will present “The Voice of Gertrude Stein” on May 26 and June 4, 2022.

On the program are art songs with text by Stein from composers such as Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, and Felix Jarrar. 

Featured artists include tenor Michael Gonzalez, soprano Sara DeLong, and mezzo-sopranos Julie Rumbold and Jade Espina. Rumbold will sing the role of Stein in selections from Peter Dayton’s “May She | She May,” and sopranos Rachel Hanauer and Caroline Spaeth will perform the roles of Jenny and Helen from Rorem’s opera, “Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters,” a surrealist, non-linear opera with libretto by Stein.

The concert, co-produced by Hanauer and Spaeth, aims to provide a voice to the LGBTQIA+ arts community and bring opera to Rhode Island’s collegiate voice students, allowing them to attend live vocal performances they might not otherwise see. 

“We also hope that this evening will provide a safe haven for LGBTQIA+ and non-binary audiences, especially as the past few years in American political life have been so fraught,” Spaeth said in a press statement.