Opera voices aspirations of LR Nine

At UCA, 4 singers debut arias from work in progress on events of 60 years ago

CONWAY -- Act 1, Scene 3 of The Little Rock Nine made its premiere as an opera Monday night before a large crowd at the University of Central Arkansas, 60 years to the day that nine black students broke the color barrier at Little Rock's Central High School.

One after another, young opera singers, portraying four of the nine, performed their arias, singing of what led them to make history, to desegregate the previously all-white school as heavily armed federal troops escorted them inside.

Melba Pattillo, portrayed by Kendra Thomas, recalled going by Central High and thinking, "Maybe I'll go in." After all, she sang, it was "the finest school in the state." But she recalled thinking it would take "a miracle to change" things before she could graduate from that school.

So, she sang, "I raised my hand and put down my name. ... I did not tell my folks."

Jefferson Thomas, portrayed by Ronald Jensen-McDaniel, stood up next. "I raised my hand," he sang. "I was a track star." But he wanted to be an architect and "maybe go far."

He would "beat hatred's long toll" because he, too, knew Central High "was the best," he sang.

Thomas, who died in 2010, went on to work for a major oil company and later the U.S. Department of Defense.

Minnijean Brown, portrayed by Candice Harris, took the stage next and told why she volunteered.

"I lived in a world I liked," she sang. "But I did feel denied."

This opportunity might change some of that, she recalled thinking. But she sang, "How hard, how hard, how hard would this be?"

Elizabeth Eckford, portrayed by Nisheedah Golden, followed Brown to the stage.

Holding two books, Eckford sang, "Hassles I expected. But I'd be accepted if they got to know me."

"No violence did I see," she sang.

The four singers, all recent UCA graduates, gave the public its first view of the opera, which UCA hopes will be completed by next summer or fall. No decision has been made on the full opera's premiere site.

Among those onstage with the performers Monday night included Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor, historian and PBS program host who is historical adviser on the opera and who earlier in the day spoke at a desegregation commemoration at Central High.

Gates told the audience he hopes the surviving eight of the Little Rock Nine will get to see the opera.

He also had a suggestion: Invite the angry whites who stood by chanting as the black students entered the school that day. Doing so, he said, would be "in the spirit of reconciliation."

It's important, he said, to try to understand the other side in such a situation. Until we understand the source of the fears that lead to such hate, we can't change it, he said.

Gates spoke of the past and the present, speaking of Martin Luther King Jr. and black author James Baldwin.

Too often, he said, "leaders are playing to those fears. ... That's what we have to rise up against."

Gates did not call out any of those politicians, from 1957 or 2017.

Also present was conductor and composer Tania Leon, who is writing the opera's music. Author and playwright Thulani Davis is writing the opera's libretto, or text, but was not present.

Gates, who was 7 and living in West Virginia when he watched the Central High Crisis unfold on national television, gave credit to the idea for the opera to Rollin Potter, a former dean of UCA's College of Fine Arts and Communication, and to Gayle Seymour, associate dean of the college.

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Donna Lampkin Stephens, an associate journalism professor and director of publications and community relations at the College of Fine Arts and Communication, moderated the discussion with Leon and Gates.

State Desk on 09/26/2017

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