Praise for Blue

Read some of the reviews for Seattle Opera’s current production of Blue, from critics and audiences alike.

Photo credit: Philip Newton

Blue is the 2020 winner of Best New Opera from the Music Critics Association of North America, created by librettist Tazewell Thompson (five NAACP Awards, plus two Emmy nominations) and composer Jeanine Tesori (Tony-winner known for Fun Home). Seattle Opera's Blue runs Feb. 26 & 27 and March 2, 5, 9, 11, & 12, 2022 at McCaw Hall. Tickets & info at seattleopera.org/blue.

Best New Opera Winner Blue Leads Slate of Exciting Events in February–March 2022

Eight opera-themed events offer a range of experiences for new audiences and seasoned operagoers alike

Seattle Opera continues its 2021/22 season with a dynamic lineup of opera events, including community conversations, artist recitals, laser shows, and a timely and award-winning opera.

A Conversation with Tazewell Thompson

The Librettist And Director of Blue

In a conversation over Zoom, Seattle Opera writer Glenn Hare and Tazewell Thompson talk about the characters he created in Blue, Tazewell’s childhood, and how he came to love opera—especially operas about nuns.

Tazewell Thompson is the 2020 Music Critics Association of North America award recipient for Best New Opera in North America for Blue. The New York Times and Washington Post both noted the opera as a Best in Classical Music 2019. He has over 150 directing credits, including 30 world and American premieres, in opera houses and theaters in the US, France, Spain, Italy, Africa, Japan, and Canada. He earned an EMMY Award nomination for Best Direction and Best Classical Production for Porgy and Bess Live from Lincoln Center. At Seattle Opera Thompson serves as a coach/mentor in the Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab for up-and-coming Washington State librettists and composers. He was also a panelist on the 2018 community forum, Breaking Glass: Hyperlinking Opera & Issues, a national collaboration with Glimmerglass Festival. Blue is his Seattle Opera directorial debut.

Why Blue matters to the artists

Tazewell Thompson, Briana Hunter, and Kenneth Kellogg. 

A story of love, loss, church, and sisterhood, the opera Blue depicts a young African American couple celebrating the joy of family with the birth of their son. Later they lean on close-knit community in the wake of their son’s death at the hands of a police officer. Some of the artists involved with Seattle Opera's 2022 production share more about why this award-winning piece is more than an opera—it's deeply personal. Hear from Tazewell Thompson (librettist and winner of five NAACP Awards, plus two Emmy nominations), Kenneth Kellogg (The Father) and Briana Hunter (The Mother). 

Testimonials were collected from a variety of different media interviews and film segments related to Blue. This is the second of two posts on Why Blue Matters, in the artists' own words.

Praise for Blue

Kenneth Kellogg, Briana Hunter and Aaron Crouch as The Father, The Mother and The Son in the world premiere of Blue at the 2019 Glimmerglass Festival. Karli Cadel / The Glimmerglass Festival

In February 2022, audiences can experience the Settle Opera premiere of Blue, the 2020 winner of Best New Opera by the Music Critics Association of North America. This portrait of contemporary African American life is the creation of librettist Tazewell Thompson (five NAACP Awards, plus two Emmy nominations) and composer Jeanine Tesori (Tony-winner known for Fun Home). 

A story of love, loss, church, and sisterhood, Blue depicts a young couple celebrating the joy of family with the birth of their son. Later they lean on close-knit community in the wake of their son’s death at the hands of a police officer. See what the press are saying about this important piece, which received its premiere at the 2019 Glimmerglass Festival. 

"Blue demands its place on the stage and within a tradition that for centuries has excluded visions of Black experience. Just as opera helped elevate Blue, so, too, can Blue elevate the future of American opera." — The Washington Post 

"A wrenching and remarkably original opera that explores deeply personal emotional truths and gives them universal resonance." —The Wall Street Journal

My Journey to Writing an Opera About Police Violence

Tazewell Thompson’s libretto for Blue tells the story of a Black family struck by tragedy. 

Tazewell Thompson, top, in Harlem. He wrote “Blue” from “an obsessive need and sense of responsibility” to tell an intimate story about police violence, behind the numbers. Credit: Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York Times

Beginning in February 2022, Seattle Opera presents Blue, the 2020 winner of Best New Opera by the Music Critics Association of North America. This portrait of contemporary African American life is the creation of librettist Tazewell Thompson (five NAACP Awards, plus two Emmy nominations) and composer Jeanine Tesori (Tony-winner known for Fun Home). A story of love, loss, church, and sisterhood, Blue depicts a young couple celebrating the joy of family with the birth of their son. Later they lean on close-knit community in the wake of their son’s death at the hands of a police officer. 

The piece was originally commissioned by the Glimmerglass Festival in 2015 to address contemporary issues surrounding race. After Tesori was asked to write the music, Thompson, a director of several productions at Glimmerglass, was asked to suggest a librettist. He proposed writing one himself, and was inspired by sources such as James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me, and Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land. 

And of course, Thompson also drew from his own lived experience. 

In a June 2020 piece for The New York Times, the librettist wrote about why it was crucial for him to tell this story through opera. This post has been updated to include Tazewell Thompson's full piece below: