After a 50-year wait, ‘Stonewall’ opera was written in weeks

NEW YORK (AP) — The world premiere of an opera based on the Stonewall riots has been timed for the uprising’s 50th anniversary.

“Stonewall” premieres Friday at the Time Warner Center’s Rose Theater in New York in a five-performance run that ends June 28, exactly a half-century after the events portrayed.

It was composed by Iain Bell and with a libretto by Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Campbell. The opera coincides with WorldPride NYC 2019. Action takes place in three parts over 75 minutes.

The Stonewall uprising of 1969 in Greenwich Village was a turning point in the LGBTQ movement.

Tenor Andrew Bidlack says that “opera is generally of tales or big events, tragic deaths or romance, and I think that this has elements of grandness to it.”