In the opening of his Harvard lecture series, The Unanswered Question, Leonard Bernstein asked, “Whither music?” This question, which references Charles Ives’ 1908 composition of the same name, encapsulated Bernstein’s interpretation of Ives’s preoccupation with the state of music at the beginning of the 20^th century. For the better part of a generation, opera companies have been asking this same question: what is the state of music in our time, and how is it changing?

The importance of this question is too vast to expand upon here. But the fact of the matter is that the solutions that opera companies have devised to get younger people in the doors have had varying degrees of success. Recent approaches have ranged from live HD opera screenings in movie theaters to a recent production of La Bohème set in space.

National Sawdust has a proven answer to this question that has plagued opera companies for decades. The National Sawdust performance space—a modern Williamsburg, Brooklyn venue constructed within the façade of an industrial 19th century sawdust factory—offers genre-expanding performances of contemporary opera in an intimate setting. 

Their February 22nd program, Opera Evolved: Genre Fluidity, was the second installment of a three-part series on contemporary opera that was co-produced by The Metropolitan Opera. The evening was an exploration of the possibilities of modern opera, featuring excerpts from El Niño (2000)—music by John Adams and text by Peter Sellars—and Sensorium Ex, which is set to premiere in 2025 with music by Paola Prestini and text by Brenda Shaughnessy. The first work, El Niño, is a 21st-century take on the Nativity. The second, Sensorium Ex, is a new work chronicling the disability experience, centered primarily on different communication methods. Each portion of the program consisted of a performance followed by an informal and informative panel discussion with performers and composers Paula Prestini and Ana De Archuleta, among other affiliated creative talent.

The performance space is a soundproof cube set in the middle of the venue lobby, next to the bar. As a wheelchair user, my primary concern was how easy it would be to navigate through the crowded lobby. I found it a little bit tricky to navigate through the crowd of people getting to their seats or enjoying the bar. This is a common experience for wheelchair users at the theater. However, once I was in the theater, it was great to be up close to where the music happened. The intimacy of the performance space more than makes up for this quotidian occurrence.

A downside to many theaters is that they tend to be huge. Being so up close to the artists really amplifies what opera can contribute as an art form. Even the discussions of each piece were casual conversations with people who were passionate about opera for the benefit of others. It removed the air of academic gatekeeping so common to the experience of seeing opera.

Inside National Sawdust, one could hear how the music works more granularly, which can sometimes be hard to pick up in a bigger house. For instance, scholars have written about the rock n’ roll influences that John Adams incorporates into his music. However, it can be hard to recognize this in the cavernous auditorium of a larger opera house. Here, standard obstacles like the distance of the orchestra to the listener do not apply, and you can hear them far more easily when it’s just a singer and a pianist performing in front of 40 people instead of 4,000. As far as showing new possibilities for opera as a genre, it was great to learn that portions of the Biblical text that John Adams set were the same that Handel used for Messiah. The mention of those details emphasized how two different composers could bring forward different attributes from the same text. 

In Sensorium Ex, it was refreshing to see someone with a disability giving a spectacular performance. Sensorium Ex is a new piece based on the poetry of Brenda Shaughnessy who wrote about learning to communicate with her disabled son. Hailey McAvoy, in the role of The Mother, gave a performance that was packed with pathos. It was thrilling to be so close to someone performing a contemporary extended operatic scene with such emotional intensity and to feel the connection that McAvoy channels between music, performer, and audience. Notably, the creation of this piece has been shepherded with the input of several people with varying disabilities on their creative council. We can only hope to see more of this exploration in the future. National Sawdust, through its performance space and program format, is a masterclass in how to break new ground in opera.

About Greg Moomjy

In 2012, Greg earned his Bachelor of Arts in Musicology from Fordham University, followed by a Masters of Science in Journalism from The Columbia School of Journalism in 2014. A passionate life-long opera lover, he has spent ten years covering trends in the field for outlets such as Classical Singer and The Indie Opera Podcast. He has also penned articles for New Mobility, New Jersey Monthly and PC Gamer. In 2018 Greg delivered a lecture on Wagner and Antisemitism at University of Pittsburgh’s “Revolution of Tenderness” conference.

As a disabled person with Cerebral Palsy, the intersection of opera and disability is a cornerstone of Greg’s work. This perspective informs his role as co-founder and artistic director of OperaPraktikos. New York City's first disability affirmative Opera Company. He serves as Assistant to the Librettists for Touch, an opera by Carla Lucero and Marianna Mott Newirth on the radical life of Helen Keller, commissioned by Opera Birmingham which premiered in 2024. Additionally, Greg is the Resident Musicologist for Divaria Productions, a New York City-based company dedicated to educating audiences about the historical circumstances surrounding classic works and watershed moments in operatic history.