News release
Mission Opera, a Santa Clarita-based professional opera company, is scheduled to present a double bill of one-act operas by Carlisle Floyd — “Slow Dusk” and “The Sojourner and “Mollie Sinclair” — on April 10, 11 and 12 at the Canyon High School Performing Arts Center.
The production is part of the Carlisle Floyd Centennial, a nationwide and international celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth and honoring his legacy as one of the most significant figures in American opera, said a news release from Mission Opera.
Conducted by Christopher James Ray, executive director of the Carlisle Floyd Centennial, the Mission Opera production brings together local Southern California singers and instrumentalists in a fully staged MainStage presentation.
The evening will be co-directed by Joshua Wentz and Stephan Nieman, offering audiences an opportunity to experience two contrasting works that illuminate Floyd’s dramatic range, musical language, and deep engagement with Colonial American history and identity, the release said.
Floyd’s first opera, “Slow Dusk” (1955), is a compact, 25-minute dramatic tragedy set in the rural Carolinas in the colonial era. On a quiet farmhouse porch, family tensions, religious divisions, and economic hardship frame a fragile love story between Sadie and Micah. When Micah dares to hope for a future together, fate intervenes with devastating consequences.
“Spare, lyrical and emotionally direct, ‘Slow Dusk’ reveals the seeds of Floyd’s mature operatic voice — intimate drama rooted in regional life and moral conflict,” said the Mission Opera release.
In “The Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair,” loyalty, power, and identity in the North Carolina colony collide on the eve of the American Revolution. On his 60th birthday Dougald MacDougald, a Scottish émigré and colonial landowner loyal to the British Crown, clashes with Mollie Sinclair, a revolutionist, when their own personal history and political upheaval converge as Mollie leads a protest against the Stamp Act.
“Through richly drawn characters and sharply etched drama, Floyd explores the impossibility of standing between two cultures — and the personal cost of choosing sides,” the release said.
Showtimes are 7:30 p.m., Friday, April 10; 4 p.m., Saturday, April 11; and 4 p.m., Sunday, April 12. The Canyon High School Performing Arts Center is located at 19300 Nadal St., Canyon Country. Tickets range from $17.82 to $38.62. For tickets and more information, visit tinyurl.com/3h3bnfuz.
