Wilmington Concert Opera  is a woman and minority-led opera company serving two communities in substantially different capacities. First, we provide high-level performance opportunities that prioritize hiring diverse casts of local singers. Second, we offer donation-based, family friendly performances to provide exposure to a traditionally expensive art form.

We have a fabulous year of programming scheduled: a Rodgers and Hammerstein concert at Rockwood Park Carriage House on May 15, 2022 and a world premiere opera, Girondines, at The Arts at Covenant (check out their fundraiser too!) October 21-23, 2022.
 

Girondines is a completely female work from conception to performance, focused on the women of the French Revolution, whose work is often omitted from history books, but whose salons and networks were crucial to the Revolution. Our own Artistic Director, Kirsten C. Kunkle, wrote the libretto to expand the conversation about the roles that women have played in history. 

Girondines is the story of six real life French Revolutionaries: Charlotte Corday, Olympe de Gouges, Marie Anne Pierrette Lavoisier, Madame Roland, Madame de Staël, and Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. Based in historical fact, this story presumes that these women knew each other, secretly meeting before the Reign of Terror, and supporting one another throughout enormous political turmoil in France. True to history, three of the women die by the guillotine and three survive. The opera focuses on their stories and legacies, all vitally important in their own ways to the advancement of women and their respective fields. Together, composer Sarah Van Sciver and Kunkle are working to further their own legacy of women, both in the history of the women featured in the opera, and also to create visceral and important roles for women in opera. This is an important work that we are incredibly excited to bring to life, but it will be costly to produce, both in time and in money. Commissioning new work comes with many costs, from fees for composer and librettist to the need for an archival quality recording to help that work live on after its initial launch. 

Please help support the arts and help us keep making opera accessible to everyone!