This April & May: World Premiere of Damien Geter’s 'Loving v. Virginia', Presented by Virginia Opera & Richmond Symphony

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mallory McFarland | Morahan Arts and Media
mallory@morahanartsandmedia.com | 646.378.9386 

World Premiere of Damien Geter’s Loving v. Virginia
to be Presented by Virginia Opera & Richmond Symphony

Co-Commissioned by Virginia Opera & Richmond Symphony,
Performances from April 25 to May 11, 2025 throughout Virginia

“invigoratingly fresh” —Opera Today about Damien Geter

www.damiengetermusic.com

New York, NY (March 3, 2025) — This spring, Virginia Opera and Richmond Symphony present the world premiere of acclaimed composer Damien Geter’s newest opera, Loving v. Virginia, across multiple venues in Norfolk, Fairfax, and Richmond, Virginia. This operatic retelling is based on the true story of Mildred and Richard Loving, the young couple whose interracial marriage in 1958 sparked a Supreme Court case and eventual victory for civil rights in the United States.

Performances of Loving v. Virginia take place at the Harrison Opera House in Norfolk, VA on Friday, April 25 at 7:30 PM and Sunday, April 27 at 2:30 PM; at the Center for the Arts at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA on Saturday, May 3 at 7:30 PM and Sunday, May 4 at 2:00 PM; and at the Dominion Energy Center Carpenter Theatre in Richmond, VA on Friday, May 9 at 7:30 PM, Saturday, May 10 at 7:30 PM, and Sunday, May 11 at 2:30 PM.

Damien Geter remarked, “As a native Virginian, the historical significance of Loving v. Virginia has remained with me since I was a teenager, but I’m finding there are many who are unfamiliar with this landmark case. Coming back home to Virginia and collaborating with Virginia Opera (the company where I first experienced opera) and working with Jessica Murphy Moo to tell the story of Mildred and Richard Loving is important not only for the sake of honoring their legacy but also for ensuring the future of the art form.”

As the culmination of Virginia Opera’s 50th Anniversary season, this new major work of Geter’s is co-commissioned by Virginia Opera and Richmond Symphony, presented in partnership with the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, and co-produced by Virginia Opera and Minnesota Opera. Learn more about Loving v. Virginia here and listen to remarks from Damien Geter from early on in the project’s process here.

Loving v. Virginia is conducted by Adam Turner and directed by Denyce Graves. Set Design is by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams and Costume Design is by Jessica Jahn. It stars Flora Hawk, Jonathan Michie, Troy Cook, Christian Sanders, Benjamin Werley, Adam Richardson, Tesia Kwarteng, Phillip Bullock, Melody Wilson, and Alissa Anderson. The Richmond Symphony provides the orchestra for this production. Watch and listen to the song “Lullaby” featuring soprano Flora Hawk and pianist Jeremy Reger here.

Damien Geter is an acclaimed American composer. His “invigoratingly fresh” (Opera Today) body of work includes chamber, vocal, orchestral, and full operatic works, with his compositions praised for their “skillful vocal writing” (Wall Street Journal). He is also a celebrated bass-baritone – “amazing to listen to. Possessed of a rolling, resonant voice even at the lowest register” (Northwest Reverb) – whose varied credits include performances from the operatic stage to the television screen. Called “superb” by The News Tribune, DC Theater Arts praises his “commanding presence and voice full of bass-baritone gravitas”. Geter is Richmond Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence through 2026 and serves as Interim Music Director & Artistic Advisor at Portland Opera.

Performance Information
Loving v. Virginia (World Premiere)
Co-commissioned by Virginia Opera and Richmond Symphony
In partnership with the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University
Co-produced by Virginia Opera and Minnesota Opera

Friday, April 25, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Sunday, April 27, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Harrison Opera House | 160 W Virginia Beach Blvd | Norfolk, VA

Saturday, May 3, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:00 PM
Center for the Arts at George Mason University | 4373 Mason Pond Dr | Fairfax, VA

Friday, May 9, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Saturday, May 10, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Sunday, May 11, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Carpenter Theatre, Dominion Energy Center | 600 E Grace St Suite 400 | Richmond, VA

Link: https://vaopera.org/loving-v-virginia/ 

DAMIEN GETER – Loving v. Virginia
Libretto by Jessica Murphy Moo

Adam Turner, conductor
Denyce Graves, director
Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, set design
Jessica Jahn, costume design
Xavier Pierce, lighting design

Flora Hawk as Mildred Jeter Loving
Jonathan Michie as Richard Loving
Troy Cook as Bernard Cohen
Christian Sanders as Philip Hirschkop
Benjamin Werley as Sheriff Brooks & Judge Leon M. Bazile
Adam Richardson as Raymond Green
Tesia Kwarteng as Annette Byrd
Phillip Bullock as Theoliver “Jake” Jeter
Melody Wilson as Musiel Byrd Jeter
Alissa Anderson as Lola Allen Loving

The orchestra for this production is provided by the Richmond Symphony.

Audience members are invited to join for a pre-show lecture 45 minutes before each performance.

Sung in English with English Surtitles.

About Damien Geter
Damien Geter is an acclaimed American composer who infuses classical music with various styles from the Black diaspora to create music that furthers the cause for social justice, as well as a celebrated bass-baritone – “amazing to listen to. Possessed of a rolling, resonant voice even at the lowest register” (Northwest Reverb) – whose varied credits include performances from the operatic stage to the television screen. He is Richmond Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence through 2026 and serves as Interim Music Director & Artistic Advisor at Portland Opera.

Geter’s rapidly growing and “invigoratingly fresh” (Opera Today) body of work includes chamber, vocal, orchestral, and full operatic works, with his compositions praised for their “skillful vocal writing” (Wall Street Journal). In the 2024/2025 season, the world premiere of Geter’s new major opera, Loving v. Virginia, concludes Virginia Opera’s 50th anniversary season. Based on the true story of Mildred and Richard Loving, the opera is co-commissioned by Virginia Opera and Richmond Symphony, co-produced by Virginia Opera and Minnesota Opera, and features a libretto by Jessica Murphy Moo, Denyce Graves as director, and Adam Turner conducting. Another new opera of Geter’s, Delta King’s Blues, commissioned by IN Series, will be workshopped in January 2025 and premiered later that year. His song, Amanirenas, commissioned by soprano Karen Slack for her African Queens art song program, tours at Washington Performing Arts, the Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, 92nd Street Y New York, the Nashville Symphony, and Friends of Chamber Music Denver. His newly commissioned song, Gentle lady, do not sing, is included on the Choral Scholars University College Dublin’s album, Music by James Joyce, Volume I (September 2024, Signum Classics).

As conductor this season, he leads Paul Moravec’s opera The Shining, based on Stephen King’s iconic novel, at Portland Opera, and Carmel Symphony Orchestra’s Opening Night Gala, America the Beautiful concert, and The Nutcracker featuring the Indiana Ballet Conservatory.

Future commissions include world premieres with the Richmond Symphony and Nathaniel Dett Chorale, plus a new operatic production at Portland Opera in 2026.

In the 2023/2024 season, Des Moines Metro Opera presented the full-length world premiere of Geter’s opera, American Apollo, starring Justin Austin, William Burden, and Mary Dunleavy, with a libretto by Lila Palmer and David Neely conducting. Opera Now proclaimed Geter’s orchestrations created “a kaleidoscopic ‘American Impressionism’, with borrowings from other genres of the time, creating a diverse palate to accommodate the vivid characters” and Opera Today stated the composer’s “sound palette and approach is very much his own distinct amalgamated voice”. Last season, Chicago Symphony Orchestra programmed Geter’s Annunciation on the concert Montgomery and the Blacknificent 7; Richmond Symphony premiered Sinfonia Americana; his song cycle COTTON saw its New York premiere at the 92nd Street Y, starring Denyce Graves and Justin Austin; Oregon Bach Festival presented his new Bach transcription after Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C Minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier; and the Recording Inclusivity Initiative recorded his String Quartet No. 1 “Neo-Soul”.

In 2022, Geter had six premieres as a composer, including his large work, An African American Requiem, in partnership with Resonance Ensemble and the Oregon Symphony with subsequent performances at the Kennedy Center; I Said What I Said for Imani Winds, co-commissioned by Anima Mundi Productions, Chamber Music Northwest, and The Oregon Bach Festival; his one-act opera Holy Ground for Glimmerglass Opera; Elegy for the American Guild of Organists; The Bronze Legacy for Chicago Symphony Orchestra; and the chamber version of American Apollo for Des Moines Metro Opera.

Called “superb” by The News Tribune, DC Theater Arts praises his “commanding presence and voice full of bass-baritone gravitas”. Last season, Geter portrayed the role of abolitionist and historian William Still to great critical acclaim in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec’s oratorio Sanctuary Road, presented by Virginia Opera, and based on the writings of Still, who is credited with helping nearly 800 enslaved African Americans escape to freedom. He also joined Auburn Symphony Orchestra in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony and Rembrandt Chamber Musicians in The Wayfarer’s Melodies: A Musical Journey, singing the John Ireland Songs of a Wayfarer cycle.

Recent season highlights include Geter’s Metropolitan Opera debut in the Grammy award-winning production of Porgy and Bess as the Undertaker. He performed the title role of Quamino in the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s Quamino’s Map with Chicago Opera Theatre; as Angelotti in Tosca with the Portland and Eugene Operas; as Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden with Hawaii Opera Theatre; and as Sam in Reno Symphony’s Voices of a Nation: Trouble in Tahiti. In concert, Geter performed as the bass soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Richmond Symphony and Fresno Philharmonic, Handel’s Messiah with North Carolina Symphony, and in the role of William Still in Sanctuary Road with the Oakland Symphony.

On television, Geter made his TV debut as John Sacks on NBC's Grimm and was seen in Netflix's Trinkets. Musical theater credits include Kevin Rosario in Lin Manuel-Miranda's In the Heights and Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar.

Geter is an alumnus of the Austrian American Mozart Festival and the Aspen Opera Center, and was a semifinalist for the Irma Cooper Vocal Competition. He toured with the prestigious American Spiritual Ensemble, a group that helps promote preserving the American art form the spiritual.

He is the owner of DG Music, Sans Fear Publishing. Music in Context: An Examination of Western European Music Through a Sociopolitical Lens, the book he co-authored, is available on Amazon, or directly from the publisher, Kendall Hunt.

Learn more at www.damiengetermusic.com.

About Virginia Opera
Virginia Opera, the official opera company of the Commonwealth of Virginia, is one of the finest regional opera companies in the nation and is the only company to perform regularly in three separate main stage venues: the Harrison Opera House in Norfolk, the Carpenter Theatre at the Dominion Energy Center in Richmond, and the Center for the Arts at George Mason University in Fairfax. Organized in 1974, Virginia Opera is respected nationwide for the identification and presentation of the finest young artists, for the musical and dramatic integrity of its productions, and for the ingenuity and variety of its education and outreach programs.

About Richmond Symphony
Founded in 1957, the Richmond Symphony is the largest performing arts organization in Central Virginia and is housed within the Dominion Energy Center in downtown Richmond. The organization includes an orchestra of more than 70 professional musicians, the 150-voice Richmond Symphony Chorus, and more than 260 students in the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra programs. Each season, more than 200,000 members of the community enjoy concerts, radio broadcasts, and educational outreach programs. The Richmond Symphony is partially funded by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photo at top of release by Rachel Hadiashar

# # #