NO! SWEET POTATO! DON’T DO IT!!!  

But Sweet Potato can’t resist, so kicks the sun clear out of the sky! Right as all are calling the sun home, Sweet Potato causes another fiasco! Now there is little hope of the sun’s return. Meanwhile a very special person is keenly following every detail, and just may step in to help. 

Sweet Potato lives in a rooftop garden with best friend 89, a hummingbird who follows rules, respects boundaries, and tries against crushing odds to keep Sweet Potato in line. They and others – Baby Honeybees, Pigeons, and Squirrel – are cared for by Grandfather Beekeeper and Grandmother Seed-Keeper. Everyone adores Sweet Potato, who enlivens their garden with kaleidoscope curiosity and energy. But this time Tater has gone too far. 

Grandfather orders 89 to accompany Sweet Potato to the summit of City Park Mountain, where he hopes the rebel grandchild will gain some wisdom. On their path into unfamiliar territory, the friends encounter fascinating critters and receive mysterious messages. They overcome obstacles with comic flair, cleverness, and courage as a fresh quest sends them beyond the mountaintop to search for the secret to the sun’s return. Along the way, Sweet Potato and 89 join forces with the special guest whose dazzling talents help them save the day. 

Back in the garden, sad news awaits. But in the end there is also much to celebrate. Sunlight, birdsongs, and honeybee buzzes return at last to the rooftop. Yet with a surprising twist thanks to you know who.

Conductor Carolyn Kuan and director John de los Santos team up for this exuberant world premiere featuring renowned beatboxer Nicole Paris in her opera debut as Special Guest Artist.

Join Sweet Potato, 89, and Nicole on their rollicking and touching journey. Their world will be transformed by their adventures. And so will yours. 

CAPTURED IMPROVISATION by Augusta read thomas

Although highly notated, precise, carefully structured, soundly proportioned, and while musicians are elegantly working from a nuanced, specific text, I like all my music to have the feeling that it is organically being self-propelled – on the spot - as if we listeners are overhearing (capturing) an un-notated, spontaneously embodied improvisation.

I want all of my works to be enacted and performed with spontaneity, alertness, naturalness and musicality. This very invitation is clearly caressed on every page of the score of SPKTS.

SPKTS is, at its core, an opera with the inner life of a captured improvisation.  I am calling for ALL artists react to one another in real time, spontaneously - and not in any stylized manner - making every performance of SPKTS full of life and inner-flow — and each performance, even by the same artists, a little different from any other performance of it.

All artists remain nimble and flexible.
— Keeps it alive from the inside.
— Keeps it fresh every show.

SPKTS is, in many ways, akin to a dance work.  It is not stiff, affected, pompous or a “park and bark” opera!

NOTE BY LESLIE DUNTON-DOWNER, LIBRETTIST

This piece was created for new voices to be heard in American opera. In that spirit, it offers an unconventional role for a guest artist to improvise rather freely, to expand our ideas about what an opera is and how it can sound. Also unusual about this opera is that its title character, Sweet Potato, is a trickster, an archaic figure found in nearly all cultures through the ages, and identified by Carl Jung as a universal human archetype.

Unlike protagonists whose actions are clearly laudable, tricksters are more akin to Bart Simpson: captivating but quite naughty, and at first glance even destructive. Drawing on a curious brand of creativity to disrupt the sacred order, the trickster can push a major reset button to clear the way for a society’s fresh start.

I think of Sweet Potato as a ‘right brain’ character, and of Sweet Potato’s friend, the rule-abiding and more rational 89, as a ‘left brain’ type. Their relationship is not always smooth, but together the friends form a powerful force that brings new possibilities into their world.

"Language remains one of the great mysteries of human life. As a librettist, I am always fascinated by the composer’s unique way of hearing language, and of shaping its inherent musicality into a dramatic universe made of sounds. As each performing artist in turn brings this world to life with astounding particularity, I am amazed to discover the libretto heard anew, given full expression. How all creative layers of an opera may be experienced by audience members is yet another mystery that deeply occupies my mind when I am writing a libretto." — Leslie Dunton-Downer

Subjects Addressed in the Opera

Respect for and love of nature; humans, flora, and fauna as interlinked; appreciating boundaries between self and others; challenges and joys of friendship and teamwork; honoring individual ways of being and learning; embracing community and communal values; the wisdom of the older generations; empathy and unconditional love; personal transformation and insight; nature in urban settings; opera embracing diverse musical traditions, artists, and audience members.

Setting

An opera house or any theater stage; a rooftop garden; streets; a mountaintop; a playground; and a glass jar factory cellar in a city where all creatures (humans, animals, birds, insects) live as equals and are able to speak and sing.

GENDER NOTE

Two roles are gender-marked in this work: GRANDMOTHER and GRANDFATHER. All other roles are expressly written as unmarked by gender.

Note

In the opera’s world, some characters are human, such as Sweet Potato, and some are not, such as 89, a hummingbird. All characters treat one another as equal creatures.

"Composing for voice is a huge passion and as a result the largest part of my catalogue is music for voice(s). The human voice — the most subtle, complex, and fragile yet forceful, flexible, seductive, and persuasive carrier of musical ideas and meanings — has always been an inspiration for and influence upon my entire musical thinking. I sing as I compose. When musicians ask me a question, I sing the answer." — Augusta Read Thomas

ABOUT THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Nicole Paris is a world-class talent. I am inspired by her beatboxing and, for the past three years, through a series of detailed workshops, we have been collaborating on an opera that I am composing in which Nicole plays the lead role. Our time together is energized and creative. We laugh a great deal when working together.  Because we trust each other, we are able to explore sound together and work hard to find just the right atmosphere for each scene in the opera.

In the opera, Nicole, the special guest artist, beatboxes and sings. The other vocalists sing and, from time to time, develop a wide variety of vocalizations akin to beatboxing. As such, the opera organically unfolds a sound world where different musical traditions crisscross and are deeply integrated.

I see opera as embracing diverse musical traditions, artists, and audience members.

Read More

"Operatic Beatz, Embrace The Newness. After meeting Augusta Read Thomas, I knew we would awaken the Universe with new music." — Nicole Paris

Dramatis Personae and Instrumentation

PERSONNEL NOTES
If needed, the opera can be given by three principal vocalists as detailed above. This work however ideally utilizes four principal vocalists in the following roles: Sweet Potato, 89, Grandfather, Grandmother. Either way, additional required personnel include one actor and a special guest artist. The GUEST ARTIST may be a vocalist (beatboxer, country singer, jazz singer, rapper, scat singer, yodeler, etc.), or any other performer or presenter not traditionally associated with opera (artist, athlete, inventor, scientist, comedian, puppeteer, or any who may demonstrate some aspect of their work to a live audience). Children’s Chorus roles are optional; note that their inclusion does not change the opera’s duration. In the libretto, optional roles appear in brackets; for example: [BABY HONEYBEES]. If no Children’s Chorus is used, a few lines of text will be added to some existing roles covered by the actor.

Read More

LIBRETTIST AND ARTISTS

Map of Form

Click image to enlarge

KALEIDOSCOPE OF VOCAL SOUNDS IN OPERA: SKETCH

Click image to enlarge

Selected Reviews

Charlotte Jusinski, The Santa Fe Reporter “A night of opera as unconventional as it was delightful.”
“A marvelous melding of children's theater and opera if ever there were one.”
“Despite Nicole Paris not being an opera singer, she delivered some of the most fun and impressive arias of the year for the Santa Fe Opera.”
“Sweet Potato, Opera for All Voices' inaugural production, turns the medium inside-out.”
“Everyone was all the better for seeing just how an opera ostensibly for children can truly delight generations.”
“Kids were truly engaged and paying close attention, while their parents were also enthralled by the colorful presentation, top-notch vocal performances and Paris' hilarious narrative interjections.”
“No polite chuckles—Nicole Paris was funny as hell, and we laughed for real.”

Mark Tiarks, Pasatiempo “This new opera has a lot of positive aspects and enjoyable attributes — a dynamic score by a highly acclaimed composer, a high-energy cast that included a beatboxer (almost certainly a first in opera), an inventive production, and a storyline that touches on several important themes.”
“Composer Augusta Read Thomas has created a score with lightning mood changes and highly varied instrumental sonorities. (Stravinsky’s groundbreaking music for a similarly sized orchestra in The Soldier’s Tale came to mind on several occasions.)”
“Stage director John de los Santos and his design team (Liliana Duque Piñeiro, scenery; Ashley Soliman, costumes; and Noele Stollmack, lighting) created an ingenious, flexible, and generally attractive environment.”
“Amy Owens, a former Santa Fe Opera apprentice, offered a totally convincing portrayal of Sweet Potato, notable for her loose-limbed physicality and ability to range through a variety of emotions. She’s a light-voiced soubrette soprano whose coloratura flights made total sense as part of her trickster character.”
“As The Special Guest artist, Nicole Paris had several audience-pleasing opportunities to demonstrate her phenomenal beatboxing skills and sang confidently in her debut as a theatrical performer. (Paris spent more than two years developing her part in conjunction with the composer.)”
“Baritone Dominik Belavy sang well as the hummingbird friend, 89, and executed his sometimes stylized movements with fluidity. He also developed a believable rapport with Owens.”
“Former SFO apprentice Briana Elyse Hunter delivered a sharply characterized portrayal as City Dweller #1.”
“The Albuquerque-based actor Dawn Lura got to demonstrate her versatility as a wide range of animals and human beings. The 15-member children’s chorus sang well and performed charmingly as the rooftop garden’s birds and bees.”

Production Photo Gallery

To obtain examination or performance material for this
Augusta Read Thomas work, please contact Nimbus Music Publishing.