With Blood, With Ink is a chamber opera about Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, the groundbreaking but tragic, 17th century Mexican poet-nun. Fort Worth Opera will be premiering the work in its first, fully professional production next season. But next Tuesday and Wednesday, you can get a preview at “Portrait of a Silenced Saint,” our two public talks with the opera’s creators and with FWOpera general director Darren K. Woods.
An illegitimate daughter born into proverty, a child prodigy, Sor (Sister) Juana taught herself to read by the age of three. She became a scholar, a wit, a poet-playwright and a favorite of the Mexican court — and entered the convent at 20. A sign of her erudition: She amassed a library of 4,000 volumes, the largest in North or South America at the time.
But she was also a defender of women’s rights — in the face of a hostile clerical hierarchy that considered her activities outside the role of a woman or a nun. The opera’s title, With Blood, With Ink, comes from the fact that Sor Juana was eventually forced to renounce her life’s work, signing the document in blood. Two years later, she died of the plague at age 46 — while tending to the sick in Mexico City.
Sor Juana truly came into contemporary consciousness with Nobel Prize-winner Octavio Paz’s biography, Sor Juana, or The Traps of Faith (translated into English in 1989). It was the book that inspired Peter Krask, a graduate student in music criticism at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory. He took his idea of adapting her life to the director of the conservatory’s opera theater program, who suggested he collaborate with a composition student, Daniel Crozier. The two had the rare privilege of seeing their project staged at the Peabody in 1993.
Since then, it’s been workshopped at the New York City Opera lab (its VOX program) and given university stagings. Fort Worth Opera will give With Blood, With Ink its first full, professional production. Both Krask and Crozier will be in Dallas and then Fort Worth next week to talk about the opera and its title character.
With Blood, With Ink is about Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, the 17th century Mexican nun. A child prodigy, she became a scholar, a poet and a defender of women’s rights in the face of the Inquisition. She is esteemed as one of Mexico’s greatest Baroque literary figures. (The opera’s title comes from the fact that Sor Juana was eventually forced to renounce her life’s work, signing the document in blood.)
Composer Daniel Crozier created With Blood, With Ink in 1993 with librettist Peter Krask at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore; it has been workshopped at the New York City Opera lab (its VOX program) and given university stagings. Fort Worth Opera will give With Blood, With Ink its first full, professional production.
– See more at: http://artandseek.net/2012/05/31/two-world-premieres-for-fort-worth-opera/#sthash.1gurfoRO.dpufWith Blood, With Ink is about Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, the 17th century Mexican nun. A child prodigy, she became a scholar, a poet and a defender of women’s rights in the face of the Inquisition. She is esteemed as one of Mexico’s greatest Baroque literary figures. (The opera’s title comes from the fact that Sor Juana was eventually forced to renounce her life’s work, signing the document in blood.)
Composer Daniel Crozier created With Blood, With Ink in 1993 with librettist Peter Krask at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore; it has been workshopped at the New York City Opera lab (its VOX program) and given university stagings. Fort Worth Opera will give With Blood, With Ink its first full, professional production.
– See more at: http://artandseek.net/2012/05/31/two-world-premieres-for-fort-worth-opera/#sthash.1gurfoRO.dpuf
With Blood, With Ink is about Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, the 17th century Mexican nun. A child prodigy, she became a scholar, a poet and a defender of women’s rights in the face of the Inquisition. She is esteemed as one of Mexico’s greatest Baroque literary figures. (The opera’s title comes from the fact that Sor Juana was eventually forced to renounce her life’s work, signing the document in blood.)
Composer Daniel Crozier created With Blood, With Ink in 1993 with librettist Peter Krask at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore; it has been workshopped at the New York City Opera lab (its VOX program) and given university stagings. Fort Worth Opera will give With Blood, With Ink its first full, professional production.
– See more at: http://artandseek.net/2012/05/31/two-world-premieres-for-fort-worth-opera/#sthash.1gurfoRO.dpuf
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