Tulsa Opera Commemorates City's 1921 Race Massacre

Having brought live opera to the city’s baseball stadium last fall, the Tulsa Opera will now pivot back to the Performing Arts Center with a concert commemorating the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, May 31-June 1, 1921. “Greenwood Overcomes,” on May 1, is titled for the district that mobs of white men attempted to destroy at the time, the Greenwood neighborhood, aka Black Wall Street.

It is coproduced with the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission (Tulsa2021.org) and co-curated by composer and Tulsa Opera Artistic Director Tobias Picker and Howard Watkins, a Met Opera resident conductor. Watkins is the collaborative pianist for the starry lineup of Black singers, several of them performing specially commissioned works by Black composers. Anthony Davis’s aria "Fire across the tracks: Tulsa 21" is on the program, from his opera-in-development with librettist Thulani Davis titled Tulsa 21. Among the singers: soprano Leona Mitchell, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, along with Leah Hawkins, Taylor Raven, Issachah Savage, Noah Stewart, and Kevin Thompson.

“The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre gouged an ugly and enduring scar into the heart of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and America,” said Picker. “The racism that hid the massacre from public memory for much of the last century can also be found in the opera and classical music realms that have similarly obscured and omitted important contributions by Black composers. 'Greenwood Overcomes' is Tulsa Opera’s humble step towards rectifying this.”

The company has commissioned graffiti artist Chris “Sker” Rogers to create a backdrop for the concert. Sker’s Black Wall Street mural [above], in the Greenwood district, is considered a cultural landmark in Tulsa.

For more on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which has indeed been hidden from public awareness for the last century, click here.