Opera Vermont Presents: William Grant Still's A Bayou Legend

Opera Vermont kicks off its Chandler partnership with this passionate tale of obsession, revenge, and eternal transcendence, performed by world-class BIPOC singers and a full orchestra conducted by Cailin Marcel Manson. A Bayou Legend is the inaugural show in a groundbreaking multi-year cycle dedicated to redeeming the majestic compositions of William Grant Still, known to scholars as "The Dean of African-American Composers.” This will be the first time that an opera by a Black composer has been staged in Vermont – but thanks to Opera Vermont and W.G. Still, this will certainly not be the last.

Set in a village in the bayou of Mississippi, a bayou legend focuses on the deadly revenge that Clothilde enacts on Bazile who does not return her expressions of love. When Clothilde discovers that Bazile has been in communication with Aurore, a spirit of the bayou, who identifies herself as Bazile's lover from a former life, Clothilde threatens to have Bazile arrested for violating local religious customs. When Bazile continues to refuse to wed Clothilde, she arranges for an angry mob to have him lynched.

In his death throes, however, Bazile's soul is at last united with Aurore, showing that love transcends time and space, while Clothilde lives out the remainder of her years as a bitter recluse.