NEW YORK – In New York, at a moment when America is turning toward its own history to commemorate 250 years since its founding, Greek director, creator, and artistic director Stefanos Koroneos chooses to do something considerably more substantive than mount a commemorative historical tableau. He returns to history in order to pose a question that remains profoundly contemporary: What does it ultimately mean to be free?
Koroneos, General and Artistic Director of Teatro Grattacielo, stands at the center of an unusually compelling double bill. On November 7 and 8, at The Sam at The Flea Theater, 20 Thomas Street in New York City, the company will present the world premiere of ‘Jefferson Lives!’, alongside Giacomo Puccini’s ‘Suor Angelica’. The two works are separated by time, aesthetics, and dramatic language, yet converge upon a common core: freedom and the price of claiming it.
‘Jefferson Lives!’ is the first opera commissioned by Teatro Grattacielo and, at the same time, Koroneos’ first libretto. The score is by American composer Joshua Daniel Nichols, while the concept and source material are by Dr. James R. Harrigan. The production has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts and, following its New York premiere, will travel to Opera Roanoke in Virginia and Arizona Opera.
The work’s central interest lies above all in the manner in which it approaches the American Revolution. It does not treat the Revolution as a fixed historical event, safely contained within the past, but as an idea whose consequences continue to reverberate in the present. A contemporary man finds himself unexpectedly transported into the past and confronted by the ghost of John Adams. Centuries collapse; history ceases to be something we merely know and becomes something that implicates us.
Teatro Grattacielo presents a double bill November 7-8, the world premiere of ‘Jefferson Lives!’, alongside Giacomo Puccini’s ‘Suor Angelica’, at The Sam at The Flea Theater in New York City. Photo: Courtesy of Teatro Grattacielo
The political idea of freedom is thereby transformed into a personal question. How readily can one speak of freedom without ever having been compelled to fight for it? And what happens when the values of an entire historical epoch collide with the consciousness of the contemporary individual?
This tension between past and present appears to lie at the heart of Koroneos’ directorial thinking. History does not interest him as scenery. It interests him as a living force.
The fact that Koroneos himself has written the libretto gives the undertaking an additional, deeply personal dimension. For the first time, he is not simply interpreting an existing work through the language of directing. He creates the dramatic material himself and then assumes responsibility for translating it into theatrical action. Writing and directing thus converge within a single artistic vision.
Opposite this new American opera stands Puccini.
‘Suor Angelica’ is presented in a chamber-music version and constitutes the production premiering at the State Opera Stara Zagora in Bulgaria, likewise directed by Stefanos Koroneos and co-produced with the Camerata Bardi International Academy.
His staging offers a particularly revealing reinterpretation. Angelica appears as the sole living presence in a convent inhabited by ghosts: women who once obeyed, loved, and surrendered parts of themselves. They are not merely figures from the past. They embody the memory of a world in which personal desire was crushed beneath social, familial, and religious imperatives.
Angelica thus finds herself suspended between lives that preceded her and the life she is desperately attempting to claim as her own.
And it is here that the two works meet.
In ‘Jefferson Lives!’, freedom emerges as a political struggle. In ‘Suor Angelica’, it becomes a personal and spiritual cost. In the first, the question concerns the birth of a political identity; in the second, the struggle of an individual to preserve a personal identity within a world that has already presumed the right to decide on her behalf.
The decision to place these works side by side is therefore more than an intelligent programming choice. It constitutes a theatrical dialogue between two distinct forms of authority and two distinct forms of resistance.
The double bill becomes still more compelling because it brings together different artistic traditions and generations. Koroneos moves from Puccini to contemporary American creation, from Europe to New York, and from the established operatic canon to the writing of an entirely new opera.
Teatro Grattacielo, founded in 1994 and the only permanent opera company in New York’s Lower East Side, has made the presentation of new American works, the revival of lesser-known repertoire, and the support of emerging artists central to its mission. Within this context, ‘Jefferson Lives!’ is not simply another production. It is a new work being given the opportunity to establish a life of its own.
Teatro Grattacielo presents a double bill November 7-8, the world premiere of ‘Jefferson Lives!’, alongside Giacomo Puccini’s ‘Suor Angelica’, at The Sam at The Flea Theater in New York City. Photo: Courtesy of Teatro Grattacielo
Perhaps this is ultimately the most compelling aspect of Koroneos’ work. He does not regard tradition and innovation as opposing territories. He places them in conversation.
The American Revolution and Angelica’s tragedy are separated by centuries. Onstage, however, they meet through a shared human necessity: the need to have a voice in determining one’s own life.
From Jefferson and Adams to Puccini’s Angelica, freedom assumes different forms. At times, it is demanded before the tribunal of history; at others, it is whispered within the confines of absolute solitude.
Stefanos Koroneos chooses to bring these different manifestations of freedom under the same theatrical gaze.
It is also worth emphasizing the significant Greek presence within the production. In the role of La Zia Principessa (The Princess), two Greek mezzo-sopranos will appear: Melina Jaharis on November 7 and Hilary Baboukis on November 8. Their participation adds another distinctive dimension to a production already defined by its movement across cultures, artistic traditions, and theatrical languages.
And so, an anniversary commemorating 250 years of American history becomes something far more enduring: a theatrical encounter with one of the most persistent questions of human existence— the right to determine who one is, and who one wishes to become.
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