MN Opera’s ‘My Name is Florence’ offers new, toe-tapping music

In 1933, composer Florence Price made history when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuted her music at the Chicago World’s Fair. It marked the first time a major American orchestra performed the work of a Black female composer.

But despite her prolific output and prominent collaborations, Price’s influence faded following her death in 1953. Her work remained largely forgotten until 2009, when a couple renovating an abandoned home south of Chicago discovered stacks of her manuscripts and personal documents. Since then, Price’s compositions have earned a place in the classical canon, performed and arranged by prestigious orchestras worldwide.

Now, the Minnesota Opera is bringing Price’s life and legacy to the stage with their upcoming world premiere, “My Name is Florence.” The performance, set to an original score by Atlanta-based composer B.E. Boykin and a libretto by Minneapolis-based playwright Harrison David Rivers, explores Price’s drive and passion.

“I have listened to a lot of [Price’s] music over the years, and I’ve always admired that she’s been able to incorporate so many styles and genres,” Boykin said. “You’ll hear in the opera different styles and genres – some jazz, some gospel.” 

Boykin, whose work appears on two Grammy-nominated albums, didn’t learn about Price until college. “I don’t think I knew Black women composers were a thing until college,” she said. Price and her contemporaries – composers like Margaret Bonds, Betty Jackson King and Undine Smith Moore – opened a door for Boykin’s career aspirations. 

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Rivers’ libretto celebrates Price and her matrilineal lineage. “I love the idea that the grandmother had named her daughter Florence, and then the daughter named her daughter Florence,” Rivers said. His work celebrates the “strength and the experience and the love and the joy that comes in passing down that name and really keeping those women central.” 

Stepping into a rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, I heard elements of blues, jazz and folk music. From emotional passages sung by the bell-like voice of Flora Hawk to bouncy ensemble rhythms, the score echoes Price’s use of American vernacular traditions.

“This is an opera where you’re gonna tap your toe, your shoulders are gonna be moving,” said Rivers, who often left workshops for the show humming Boykin’s melodies. 

Originally from Kansas, Rivers came to the Twin Cities for a Playwrights’ Center fellowship in 2014. He fell in love with the blue sky and the lakes, and within two weeks met his eventual husband. His career has flourished through work with the History Theatre, Penumbra Theatre, Theater Latté Da, Trademark Theater and the Playwrights’ Center, in addition to shows across the country. 

Rivers and Boykin first teamed up for a gala piece for the Minnesota Opera during the pandemic. More recently, the two paired as part of the opera’s New Works Initiative. 

Begun in 2008 in response to its success with “The Grapes of Wrath,” the initiative trails only the Houston Grand Opera for the number of new works commissioned, according to Minnesota Opera’s president and general director, Ryan Taylor. 

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The program focuses on long-term artistic development, paying three composers and three librettists over the course of seven years.

“We decided we could probably manage this if we attacked it as three song cycles, three chamber operas and three fuller scale operas, so that the combination of those six people working in different partnerships would give us nine new works,” Taylor said. 

Initial conversations began in 2021 followed by more earnest collaboration by the end of 2022. Beginning with “My Name is Florence,” the opera will share the cohort’s works through 2030. 

Part of the challenge, said Taylor, is convincing audiences to listen.

“When you say that something is a new piece of music, a lot of people assume that it’s going to sound like a tray of upturned flatware on a tile floor,” he said. They want to know, “Will I be able to tap my toe or remember a melody?” 

For “My Name is Florence,” Taylor said the answer is a definitive yes. “The music is infectious. I think it has joy. It has heart in it. And it is still classical. It is still an opera, but it does have all of these other flavors.” 

“My Name is Florence” runs Sat., Jan. 31, at 7:30 p.m., Thurs., Feb. 5, at 7:30 p.m., Sat., Feb. 7, at 7:30 p.m., and Sun., Feb. 8, at 2 p.m. at the Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington St., St. Paul ($28-$275). More information here. 

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“Mara, Queen of the World,” by Rebecca Nichloson

Rebecca Nichloson has a deep, resonant, incredible voice that gave me chills the first time I heard it at the Cedar Cultural Center. She’s also keen to experiment. In her latest work, she’s collaborating with Ashembaga (Ashe) Jaafaru (whom I absolutely loved in Theater Mu’s “Maybe You Could Love Me” last fall) and two other dancers. The piece traverses time and space between Saint Paul’s Rondo neighborhood and an Alabama plantation circa 1832. Shows are on Sat., Jan. 31, and Sun., Feb. 1, at the Red Eye Theater, 2213 Snelling Ave., Minneapolis (free). More information here. 

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