“The highlight of the evening was its centerpiece, “Forever” — quite easily the strangest opera I’ve ever seen...a new idea of what opera can do.”
“The most successful of the three new works...Tien’s libretto provoked a lot of laughter in the audience.”
Forever
Commissioned by Washington National Opera for the American Opera Initiative, Forever is a 20-minute tragicomic opera set in a post-human world where the protagonists are two microplastics and a hardy microorganism known as a tardigrade.
Composed by Elizabeth Gartman and with a text/story by librettist Melisa Tien, the opera premiered January 19, 2024 at the Kennedy Center. For more information, please visit the American Opera Initiative website.