Swimming in the Dark, a new opera

Date & Time

Price $75

Venue The Studios of Key West
533 Eaton Street
Key West, FL 33040 GET DIRECTIONS

Phone Number 305.296.0458

Swimming in the Dark, A Staged Concert of Act One
Music by Martin Hennessy, Libretto by Stephen Kitsakos

Adapted from the international bestselling novel by Tomasz Jedrowski, and named a top 20 LGBTQ book for 2020 by NPR, The Guardian, O Magazine, Publishers Weekly & the New York Review of Books, Swimming in the Dark is an opera about choice and political freedom. Set in Poland in 1980, it is an opera about a consuming love affair engulfed by a political thriller in a country being torn apart. At its center is a story of two young men, Ludwik and Janusz, who meet one summer after graduating from college and bond over their discovery of the American novelist James Baldwin’s seminal work of gay & bisexual literature, "Giovanni’s Room". A tale of subversion, entrapment and identity set against the beauty and rapture of the Polish countryside at the rise of the Solidarity movement. With soaring melodies and a moving libretto (sung in English) the opera is sure to resonate with American audiences.

Featuring Singers and Musicians from IU Jacobs School of Music, with guest opera singers Deanne Meek and Michael Kelly. Cover image by David Boca.