Forget Figaro

Operas about an obsessed baker and famous car maker take Fort Worth stage

Rachel Peters, composer-librettist, Fort Worth Opera, Frontiers

Rachel Peters is the composer-librettist of the new opera Companionship.

Photo courtesy of Fort Worth Opera

Fort Worth Opera this spring will showcase snippets of six new works by contemporary writers taking on decidedly modern plots. They range from a baker obsessed with making the perfect baguette to a woman chasing utopia in the American Southwest to the family drama of Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company.

(And opera used to be about boy-meets-girl-and-someone-dies. Boring.)

The opera scenes will be shown as part of FWO's 2018 Frontiers series, now in its sixth year, taking place May 2-3 at Bass Hall. Twenty-minute excerpts of each new, unpublished piece will be sung by artists from the FWO Festival with piano accompaniment. The public can attend for $10 per showcase, and the featured composer-librettist teams will get feedback from a panel of opera professionals.

There's no guarantee the works will ever see the stage, but if they do, audience members can say they were part of the journey.

Here's a closer look at the operas in this year's Frontiers, as described by Fort Worth Opera:

Companionship: Recovering from a nervous breakdown, aspiring baker Leslie Sinclair finally reaches the end of her obsessive quest to bake the perfect baguette when the 207,345th one suddenly comes to life. Companionship, by composer-librettist Rachel Peters, mirrors our contemporary world, where what we consume becomes all-consuming. Adapted from the short story by Arthur Phillips.

Fordlandia: This work, by composer William Susman and librettist Stuart Rojstaczer, is a family drama about the struggle between Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, over the leadership and future of Ford Motor Company. Henry’s inability to relinquish the control of his company to a son he loves dearly destroys Edsel emotionally and physically. The tragedy between father and son is only mitigated by the strength and actions of their wives.

Mabel’s Call: After Mabel abandons her life in 1910’s New York as an international icon of the avant-garde, she reinvents herself in the remote desert village of Taos, New Mexico. Inspired by the life of Mabel Dodge Luhan, Mabel’s Call, by Brooklyn-based composer-librettist Nell Shaw Cohen, follows a fiercely unconventional woman chasing utopia and romance in the Southwest.

Savitri & Sam: Composer John Mills Cockell and librettist Ken Gass’ opera Savitri & Sam was inspired by the true story of Savitri, a 17-year-old high school student living in a remote Punjabi community of northern British Columbia. After her secret relationship with Sam, an 18-year old aboriginal boy of Haisla heritage, is exposed, she is tragically stabbed to death by her father. The story is all the more poignant because of the intense idyllic love of the young couple, who seemed so ideally suited for one another, despite their different cultural heritages.

Hagar and Ishmael: In William David Cooper’s grand Biblical opera Hagar and Ishmael, Egyptian handmaid Hagar encounters an angel after she flees Abraham’s camp, who tells her an incredible prophecy about her son Ishmael. Sixteen years later, Ishmael learns that newborn Isaac will be Abraham’s successor, and tries to kill him. Exiled and desperate in the desert, Hagar and Ishmael find faith, freedom, and a marvelous destiny.

Domestic: This opera, by composer-librettist Ben Stevenson, is a set of two one-act operas exploring the ways that people interact when no one is watching. Act One — An Enigma — is about how people end a relationship, while Act Two — percs. — is about the hope that others can offer when things seem hopeless.

Frontiers comes in the midst of the Fort Worth Opera Festival, which will stage Don Pasquale, Maria de Buenos Aires, and Brief Encounters, April 27-May 6, at Bass Hall.

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Ancient Sculpture News

Fort Worth museum one of only 3 in U.S. to get rare sculpture exhibit

Lorenzo di Masi/Torlonia Collection

The Torlonia Nile

A major exhibition of ancient Roman masterworks is coming to the U.S. for the first time to be viewed at only three museums — including the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.

Called Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection, it's an assemblage of works stewarded by the Torlonia Family beginning in the early-19th century, and will be installed at the Kimbell from September 14, 2025 – January 25, 2026.

As part of the Foundation’s mission to showcase these historical works to the public, the exhibition will premiere at the Art Institute of Chicago on March 15 through June 29, before traveling to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Its third stop will be at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, from March 14 - July 19, 2026.

The Torlonia Collection was established during the course of the 19th century by the Franco-Italian banker Prince Giovanni Torlonia and his son Alessandro, then handed down over generations, eventually growing into the largest private collection of ancient Roman sculptures.

Today, the Torlonia Foundation represents the culmination of the Family’s continued passion for art. Created at the behest of Prince Alessandro Torlonia (1925–2017), the Foundation’s mission is to preserve and promote the Torlonia Collection and Villa Albani Torlonia.

In 1876, Prince Alessandro Torlonia (1800-1886) created a museum to house and exhibit the Family’s holdings, which was open to small groups until its closure at the onset of World War II. The sculptures remained unseen by the public from that time until the Foundation’s first exhibition at the Musei Capitolini in Rome in 2020. That was followed by a stint at the Louvre, the first presentation of the collection outside of Rome, where it has drawn more than 600,000 visitors to date, an unprecedented feat.

The exhibit
The curators of Myth & Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection are Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katharine A. Raff of the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition is co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Torlonia Foundation, in collaboration with the Kimbell Art Museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and The Museum Box. All of the sculptures in the exhibition have been restored by the Foundation with the support of Bvlgari.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue co-published by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Torlonia Foundation, edited by Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katharine A. Raff, with essays by Silvia Beltrametti and Salvatore Settis.

The North American presentation will feature 58 highlights from the Torlonia Collection, including 24 newly restored works that have not been on view in nearly a century. The sculptures date from approximately the 5th century BCE to the early 4th century CE, with the majority of the works dating to the High Imperial period (1st–2nd centuries CE). Highlights include examples of the most emblematic genres of ancient marble sculpture, acquired by the Torlonia Family from the most prominent collections of Rome’s patrician families, as well as from excavations made on the Family’s own estates throughout Italy.

“The Foundation is excited to be sharing the Torlonia Collection with audiences in North America for the first time. This exceptional group of ancient sculptures is a testament to the enduring cultural legacy of ancient Rome, as well as the vision and passion of multiple generations of the Torlonia Family,” said Alessandro Poma Murialdo, President of the Torlonia Foundation.

The presentation is organized thematically in six sections, featuring sculptures found on the Torlonia Family’s properties in Rome and the surrounding suburbs and their estate in Porto, Portugal, as well as a number of exceptional sarcophagi (stone coffins), among the largest sculpted works in marble to survive from ancient Rome.

The tour reinforces the work of the Foundation to advance the appreciation and understanding of this unparalleled collection and the rich cultural heritage it represents. The Foundation’s mission is carried out through a continuous joint effort between the public and private sectors, including with the cooperation of the Italian Ministry of Culture. The Foundation is supported by a longstanding collaboration with Bvlgari as the principal sponsor of the restoration project since its inception in Rome and throughout the global tour, and Chiomenti, who has lent invaluable support to the Foundation’s core activities.

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