DATES WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON - STAY TUNED!
Des Moines Opera is thrilled to announce the commission of an expanded version of Damien Geter and Lila Palmer's one-act opera, AMERICAN APOLLO.
AMERICAN APOLLO gives voice to a pivotal figure in American art: Thomas Eugene McKeller, a Black model who served as inspiration for the famous portraitist, John Singer Sargent. McKeller posed for most of the figures in Sargent's murals at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, but the painter transformed McKeller's figure into white gods and goddesses, creating soaring allegories of the liberal arts that celebrated the recent expansion of the city's premier civic museum. Themes of erasure, the white gaze, and the nature of the relationship between the two men are explored in this powerful new work.
The original 20-minute version of AMERICAN APOLLO, commissioned by Washington National Opera and recently performed at the The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, will be presented during our 50th Anniversary Season in 2022 in partnership with Pyramid Theatre Company and the Des Moines Art Center. Des Moines Opera wil present the world-premiere of the full-length version as part of their 2024 Festival Season.