EVE ADAMS
an opera in progress based on the story of Eve Adams
Images from outhistory.org
Read more about Eve here: Eve Adams Archive
Synopsis:
Eve Adams was a Polish-Jewish immigrant whose tearoom in Greenwich Village became a haven for artists, activists, and the lesbian and gay community in the 1920’s. Rubbing shoulders with anarchists and socialists, she published a collection of lesbian love stories that was to prove her undoing. Already under the eye of moral guardians for being an immigrant and a radical as well as a supposed degenerate, the NYPD sent an undercover detective to the Hangout. Said detective, Margaret Leonard, acted as a honey trap for Eve Adams and after a raid on the Hangout uncovered the book Lesbian Love as incriminating evidence. Eve, after detainment and trial, was deported back to Europe, where her Jewishness and queerness again made her a target during the Holocaust, this time with fatal results.
Fusing Jazz and Cabaret, the opera begins as newly retired and heavily decorated Margaret Leonard visits the long-abandoned tearoom. Stonewall rages outside, and, summoned by the shouts of a new generation, the old ghosts of the Hangout challenge Margaret to recant the perjury that destroyed Eve- and tell the truth at last. Margaret accepts the challenge and we are plunged back forty years. Then, desperate to prove herself as a police officer, Margaret takes an undercover assignment at the notorious tearoom- only to find herself increasingly drawn to the revolutionary ideas within it- and to Eve herself. Soon, she will have to choose between the future she had always dreamed of - and a world she cannot bring herself to leave.
Casting:
Eve Adams - Mezzo-soprano
Margaret Loenard - Soprano
Mary Sullivan - Contralto
Clara - Soprano
Chorus - Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, Tenor, Baritone
Instrumentation: chamber orchestra (currently written for piano)
Developed in partnership with the Jewish Arts Mentorship at the Segal Centre in Montreal, QC