A new opera, “Castor and Patience,” takes on the pervasive barriers to land ownership for Black Americans.
With a libretto by former poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith and a score by composer Gregory Spears, the opera tells the story of two cousins’ struggles in owning and keeping property long held by their family. It premiered at Cincinnati Opera last week.
Smith and Spears started their work together around 2016 talking about a story highlighting how Blacks have been stripped of land ownership. But their ambitions really began to take shape during their research expeditions to the South Carolina and Georgia coasts. There they met with many people including Hilton Head Island resident Emory S. Campbell, a descendant of West Africans brought here as slaves.
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