Petition Launched Against Performance of New American Opera 

 

The petition was created by John Jay College student Mya Bishop on Change.org — with the aim to cancel the world premiere performances of A New American Opera: Emmett Till on March 23 and 24, 2022. The petition stands at over 14,000 signatures. 

Emmett Till was a Black teenager who was murdered in 1955 in Mississippi, sparking the 1950-60s Civil Rights Movement against racial segregation in the U.S.

The opera was adapted from white playwright Clare Coss’ 2013 play Emmett, Down in My Heart, and includes music by Black composer Mary D. Watkins and a libretto by Coss. 

 

 

Bishop and others who are against the performance, focused their arguments on Coss’ involvement with the piece and its centering on a fictional white woman. 

As Coss’ adaptation goes, this character teaches high school science in Dew, Mississippi and is against segregation and racial inequality but remains silent when it happens around her. The production notes stated that this character was intended to represent “what Martin Luther King Jr. called the ultimate tragedy, ‘the silence of the good people,’” according to Playbill.

“Clare Coss has creatively centered her white guilt by using this play to make the racially motivated brutal torture and murder of a 14-year-old child about her white self and her white feelings,” Bishop wrote in the petition. “Telling the story from the perspective of a fictional progressive white woman shows that Clare Coss is more concerned with showing the audience that ‘not all white people are bad’ than she is with the ongoing fight for racial justice.”

“It is very disturbing that people are condemning this piece without having seen or heard it,” Watkins told Playbill in response to criticisms. She continued:

“They have jumped on the fact that the playwright is white and assumed all kinds of things about the content of the play. Even though there are many artists of color involved in this project, the critics are assuming that we have had no impact on the final shape of the piece and that the playwright has somehow forced all of us to tell her story. It is an insult to me as a Black woman and to the company members who are African-American.

“Yes, the opera has a fictional white character — but it isn't about her. It is a true story that happened in our American history that could be told by anyone. Documentaries have been made, books have been written, songs have been sung by those moved to express their reaction to the true story of the brutal murder of a 14-year-old boy. The story is told from the viewpoint of one who recognizes that staying silent, instead of confronting a vicious system, allows the dehumanization of human beings to be a way of life. She comes to the realization that she and others like her have a responsibility to speak out and condemn racism.

“Also, I am very sad to see Clare Coss being criticized so harshly. She is an ally, a life-long activist who has worked hard for eight long years to develop this piece and to raise the funds to produce the first two performances. She has been very respectful to me and all the other artists of color on this project. It is my opinion that she has every right as an artist to tell the story of Emmett Till.”

 

The opera was also condemned by the Black Opera Alliance — an organization of Black opera artists promoting racial equity and systemic change in opera — who stated that while they feel for the Black people involved in the opera, they do not support the “rehashing of Black trauma for white entertainment.”

“The Black Opera Alliance empathizes with and supports the Black artists and producers involved in the upcoming production of Emmett Till,” the group posted on Instagram. “But we denounce the telling of this historic story by a white woman and from a white vantage point. It is time for Black creators to be given opportunities to expand the operatic canon with authentic storytelling from our own perspectives.”

Despite the protest, the performance of Emmett Till took place as scheduled with conductor Tania León at John Jay College’s Gerald W Lynch Theater, in collaboration with Opera Noire International and The Harlem Chamber Players.

“Composer Mary Watkins and I have been collaborating on the creation of Emmett Till the opera since 2013,” Coss stated. “Mary was 15 in 1955 and I was 20, each of us deeply and differently impacted by the barbaric lynching of 14-year old Emmett Till in the Mississippi Delta, and the failure of justice.” She continued:

“To illuminate lifelong heartfelt pain — Mary through her profound music, me through words — our dual partnership advanced and expanded with the artists who joined us along the way. To work with Mary Watkins is a privilege.

“The courage of Mamie Till, the Wright family, young Willie Reed and his family, and others to testify in an armed Klan courtroom, under death threats, broke the Delta Code. The opera introduces to the general audience what Mary Watkins calls ‘the greatness of ordinary people,’ who stood up, suffered, and continued to struggle to bring about change in this country.

“The one invented white character, Roanne Taylor, a schoolteacher who cares but is silent, reflects Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ultimate tragedy: the silence of the good people. She represents the context of White Supremacy in which the world of violence and terror was enabled. She takes a first step forward to break the silence.

“The words of Mamie Till Mobley are a steady guidepost: ‘You must continuously tell Emmett Till’s story until everyone’s consciousness rises. Only then will there be justice for Emmett Till.’”