Nothing Except My Genius Receives OPERA America Discovery Grant

UPDATE: We have renamed this project Manor of Speaking: Blythely Oratonio's Glam-Operetta Reenactment of Oscar Wilde's 1882 Tour Across the Barely United States, and we refer to it as such everywhere else now.

As promised, here is the first of two big announcements for April: OPERA America has awarded a Female Composers Discovery Grant to my proposed project with librettist Kevin Thomas Townley Jr., Nothing Except My Genius!

Kevin and I have known each other for well over a decade, traveling in similar circles and greatly admiring one another’s work. In 2015, we narrowly missed a chance to collaborate, which disappointed us both. He is truly a man of a zillion talents—theatre, glam rock, art history, and now a published author!—and deep insight into so many realms of our shared humanity. We recently reconnected when he assisted me with research for a different project. In that meeting, unrelated to the topic at hand, he shared his wealth of knowledge about Oscar Wilde’s pre-fame tour of the United States. I don’t even remember how it came up, but I was completely captivated and immediately offered to score an operatic conveyance of the story. I had just finished up the orchestra rehearsals for Lesson Plan, and I anticipated working with Stephanie Blythe sing the role of Alice in the coming weeks. As opera fans know well, she has been performing as her bearded tenor alter ego, Blythely Oratonio, for the last several years, and last summer Blythely gave a star turn as Don Jose in Carmen with Chicago Opera Theater. On a whim I said, “What if Stephanie as Blythely played Oscar Wilde?” We were excited about this and pondered some more.

I noted that so far, Blythely had only performed covers, so I asked if he might be interested in a new original work. And, after an exhausting application process, now there will be one! Whew! It was a longtime dream fulfilled to be able to write an opera for Stephanie. I told friends that I could die happy, but it had to be after January 2022 when Lesson Plan closed. Well, I guess I’m glad I didn’t yet, because now there’s much more work to do!

This grant will support a reading of the libretto toward the end of this year and a piano/vocal reading of scenes in progress for mid-2023. Here is a description of what we’re setting out to do in Nothing Except My Genius:

Most Victorians wrote to gain access to society. Oscar Wilde flipped this notion on its head, cultivating a name for himself as a rapier wit in upper class drawing rooms, hoping to launch his literary career. The man who coined the epigram, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about,” proved equal to the task of spinning bad press to his advantage. Mentions in gossip columns, grew into caricatures in magazines, and eventually a send-up by Gilbert and Sullivan in their operetta Patience…All before Wilde had, to this point, never published anything. He was a personality before he was a poet. 

Seeing a golden promotional opportunity, the American producer of Patience, Richard D’Oyly Carte, enlisted Wilde. The plan was for him to speak on beauty and aesthetics to drum up interest in the operetta, but it was Wilde who would become the main attraction. 

Disembarking from the SS Arizona on January 2, 1882, Oscar Wilde was asked by customs whether he had anything to declare. “Nothing…except my genius,” he said. Thus began a hilarious 12-month lecture tour across a barely United States. While he had but one book of poetry to his name, Wilde discovered that, in America, one could become famous just for being famous. With a flair for self-promotion, he inspired ads, fashion and music, earning him friends and foes alike. But his greatest triumph was in Leadville, Colorado, where he won over a burly bunch of miners lecturing on home decor, proving that art can bridge any divide. Having integrated his mastery of PR as well as a new understanding of the vastness of America, Wilde is able to shed his curated public and truly become himself.   

You can read all about the grant and the whole roster of recipients here. Thank you to OPERA America for this honor. We are very excited to get writing, and once there’s something to share, I’m sure I’ll be blabbing about it everywhere!

OPERA America Discovery Grant recipients left to right: Layale Chaker, Ashi Day, Susan Kander, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, for Pamela Madsen, me, Amber Vistein, and Alyssa Weinberg