Faces in the Flames
Nathan Felix, composer
Anita Gonzalez, librettist

Three scenes tell the story of photographer Thomas Askew, an Atlanta resident whose photos captured the dignity of African Americans during a time when only stereotypical imagery of Blacks circulated. In the opera, Askew journeys via wagon from Cobb County, Georgia, to encounter a thriving community of free Blacks in the city. Later, the photographer runs a thriving photo business within a middle-class neighborhood of Atlanta when newly arrived W.E.B. Dubois asks Askew to send his photos to the Paris Exposition. In the final scene, Askew’s studio has been destroyed by the Great Atlanta Fire. Two of his photographic subjects search the ruins for images while the ghost of Askew proclaims the dignity of African American people. Throughout the opera, a chorus of African Americans reflects the aspirations of a hopeful community at the turn of the 20^th century.

Nathan Felix, composer
Faces in the Flames

Nathan Felix is a Mexican American composer known for his immersive operas and experimental films. Felix has premiered 16 operas, four symphonies, and various chamber works in Spain, Japan, Australia, Bulgaria, Portugal, China, Sweden, Denmark, Mongolia, and the United States, and he has been featured on the BBC, MTV, NPR, TPR, and PBS. He often focuses on telling Latinx-themed and minority stories that highlight border issues, underserved communities, and his Hispanic heritage. In 2023, Felix participated in The Atlanta Opera’s 96-Hour Opera Festival in which, along with librettist Anita Gonzalez, he won the Audience Favorite award for Faces in the Flames. He also serves as the founding director for the Opera Austin Festival. For more information, visit electrochestral.com.

Anita Gonzalez, librettist
Faces in the Flames

Librettist Anita Gonzalez is a 2023–2025 fellow with American Opera Projects’ Composers and the Voice. Her librettos include Faces in the Flames (The Atlanta Opera’s 96-Hour Opera Project), Courthouse Bells (Boston Opera Collaborative), Finding the Light (Louise Toppin and Marquita Lister), Sunset Dreams (The Vagrancy), and Home of My Ancestors (HGOco). Her musicals include Kumanana (Gala Hispanic Theater), Ybor City (Latiné Musical Theater Lab), and Zora on My Mind (The Woodshed). Gonzalez is a professor at Georgetown University and leads the Woodshed Center for Art, Thought, and Culture. She is a member of the National Theatre Conference, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and sits on the board of directors of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Gonzalez believes the art of storytelling connects people. Over 50,000 students have taken her massive open online courses “Storytelling for Social Change” and “Black Performance as Social Protest.” For more information, visit anitagonzalez.com.

Little Ones 
Danielle Olana Jagelski, composer
Rhiana Yazzie, librettist

Little Ones is a dark comedic opera that unfolds in the 1980s, exploring life at a Native American residential school in rural Utah. The story is centered around Marigold — uprooted from her home and transferred to the Inner West Residential School. The narrative follows Marigold through high school, delving into her transformation into womanhood, yearning for her family connection, and anxieties about the world outside of the confines of boarding school. The students grapple with the complexities of assimilation guided by the church and the difficulties of coming of age in a rapidly changing world. The opera explores the evolution of the slogan “Kill the Indian, Save the Child” into a more contemporary, ostensibly benevolent version: “Save the Indian, Save Them from Themselves.” Little Ones serves as a tribute to the challenges young people faced during the final decade of the U.S. residential school era and continue to struggle with today. The opera paints a picture of the struggles of any person conflicted with their place in American society while preserving their individual identity, all within a world undergoing profound change.

Danielle Olana Jagelski, composer
Little Ones

Danielle Olana Jagelski is a composer, conductor, orchestrator, and creative producer. She is the artistic director of Renegade Opera, producer for First Nations Performing Arts, and faculty at Manhattan School of Music’s Pre-College Division. A fierce advocate for equity in artistic spaces and a citizen of the Oneida Nation/Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe, she is especially passionate about decolonization through collective creation and performance. A composer of narrative music of all kinds, she has recently premiered works with New Native Theatre, Voices of Ascension, and American Patriots Project, among others. Her works have been performed throughout the country, including at Roulette Intermedium, Performance Space New York, The Green Room 42, and Shaking the Tree. As a conductor, she is sought out for her execution of contemporary works, and she has worked with companies such as Opera Theatre Saint Louis, Anchorage Opera, and Opera Ithaca. She has received grants from the Plimpton Foundation, Oregon’s Regional Arts and Culture Council, and now OPERA America.

Rhiana Yazzie, librettist
Little Ones

Rhiana Yazzie is an award-winning playwright, director, and filmmaker. A Navajo Nation citizen (Ta’neeszahnii bashishchiin dóó Táchii’nii dashinalí), she is the artistic director of New Native Theatre, which she started in 2009 as a response to the lack of connection and professional opportunities between Twin Cities theaters and the Native community. She directed the U.S. premiere of Missing at Anchorage Opera in 2023. Her play Nancy, an unexpected biography of Nancy Reagan, premiered at Mosaic Theater in Washington, D.C., in April, and her new TYA play, Other Children of the Sun, will premiere at the Kennedy Center in 2025. She is currently writing plays for Solas Nua, Ireland’s Fishamble Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, Rattlestick Theater, and the University of New Mexico. She is a writer on AMC’s Dark Winds and is working on her second feature film.

Generación Perdida
Jorge Sosa, composer/librettist

Generación Perdida is an evening-length monodrama for mezzo-soprano, video, and chamber ensemble. The work is based on the book Generación Perdida by the Mexican Colombian poet and journalist Javier Moro Hernández. He has written a vivid narrative that explores the human rights crisis in Mexico, where more than 100,000 people have been forcibly disappeared or gone missing over the last 15 years. The work is thoroughly documented and based on real-life stories, infused with piercing, poignant poetry and imagery. The most infamous unsolved case was the “Ayotzinapa 43,” in which 43 college students were held at gunpoint by the police in the middle of the night, forced out of the buses in which they were traveling, and were never seen or heard from again. For most people who live in Mexico, violence is a daily occurrence. It is something that people have to live with day in and day out. 

Jorge Sosa, composer/librettist
Generación Perdida

Jorge Sosa is a Mexican-born composer currently residing in New York City. The Boston Globe described the score of his opera Monkey: A Kung Fu Puppet Parable as “agile and entertaining, as befits such a journey” and praised the “seductive slow number sung by … Mara” and “a crackling vocal duel between Guan Yin and Mara.” Opera News described his telematic opera Alice in the Pandemic as “wildly imaginative, musically powerful, and technically courageous” and commended “Sosa’s broad stylistic palette.” In 2022 and 2023, Sosa was a finalist for The Atlanta Opera’s 96-Hour Opera Project. Most recently, he was selected for Austin Opera’s Opera ATX Residency for Latinx Creatives and will be in residence in 2025. Sosa’s opera I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams received its third production this fall by Tri-Cities Opera. Sosa is an associate professor at Molloy University.