CRITICAL ACCLAIM

CREATIVE TEAM

The Secret River is Opera Orlando’s first commissioned new work based on the young adult book of the same name by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. A Pulitzer prize- winning author, Ms. Rawlings was well known for her novel, The Yearling, and several other writings that chronicled her experiences living in and around Central Florida. Her young adult book, The Secret River, was published posthumously in 1955 and subsequently awarded a Newbery Honor Book Award.

With a libretto by Pulitzer Prize and Grammy award-winner Mark Campbell and music by University of Central Florida Pegasus professor Stella Sung, The Secret River is set in Central Florida during the Great Depression and follows the journey of Calpurnia, a young, intelligent girl with a robust imagination as she searches for a secret river to help her family and small town. This story for all ages demonstrates the power of trusting one’s imagination and the goodness within us all.

The production featured musicians from the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and members of the Opera Orlando Youth Company under the baton of Everett McCorvey, founder and music director of the American Spiritual Ensemble. The piece was directed by Dennis Whitehead Darling featuring puppetry created and performed by Michelee Puppets.

NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR

In 1955, two years after Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's death, the only remaining manuscript from her estate was posthumously published. The idea for this children's book, The Secret River, was born from something written in her autobiography, Cross Creek, reading, "someday a poet will write a sad and lovely story of a Negro child."  

Thinking back on my initial attraction to The Secret River, I admired how forward-thinking it must have been for its time. To depict a struggling African-American family during one of the most economically challenging times in American history and present an articulate young black girl as its central character must have been groundbreaking. To her credit, Rawlings deliberately avoided the racist "Negro dialect" of the time, declaiming, "No Uncle Remus or Little Black Sambo sort of stuff" to her editor. Perhaps Rawlings's social interactions with her Florida environment and her close relationship with her life-long Black friend, Beatrice, were the impetus for writing a broader and more poetic depiction of a Black family. This children's book gives me a glimpse of Rawlings's character and, ideally, her passion for breaking social norms that marginalize people of color, a cause that is very close to my heart.

In our beautifully written and scored setting of The Secret River, the core elements of the original story remain. However, more emphasis is placed on the familial relationship between Calpurnia and her parents, Cassandra and Augustus. The expansion of these characters and their relationships takes another leap forward in depicting a broader vision of the African-American family through a more modern lens. If I may say so, it adds richer colors to a picture initially set in sepia tones.

Dennis Whitehead Darling 

SYNOPSIS

A young girl named Calpurnia lives near Cross Creek, Florida, during the Great Depression. When she learns that her community has fallen on hard times and faces starvation and that her father’s livelihood as a fisherman is threatened, she seeks the advice of Mother Albirtha, a wise woman who lives deep in the forest. Albirtha tells Calpurnia about a secret river teeming with fish and that she’ll find it only when she learns to trust her imagination. Calpurnia heeds Mother Albirtha’s advice, saves the community and her father’s business—but in the end, also learns a profound lesson about humility and the true meaning of altruism.

“A secret river,
Flows through us all,
Young and old,
Big and small.”

The commissioning of Stella C.Y. Sung for The Secret River (a new opera for all audiences based on the book by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings) received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

Additional funding provided by the Winifred Johnson Clive Foundation, The Elinor & T.W. Miller Jr. Foundation, Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation, The Pabst Steinmetz Foundation, the Universal Orlando Foundation, Dr. Phillips Charities, and the National Endowment for the Arts.