Get to know: avery r. young's "safronia"

Lyric Opera of Chicago is proud to present the world premiere of safronia, an evocative new work commissioned from Chicago’s first Poet Laureate, avery r. young. Drawing on Black folklore and poetic narrative, and rich with the musical lineages of gospel, blues, funk, and soul, safronia offers an Afro-surrealist meditation on family, memory, and the enduring imprint of the Great Migration on American life. This semi-staged production, directed by Timothy Douglas in his Lyric debut, marks a significant addition to Lyric’s ongoing commitment to new work that reflects the cultural vibrancy of Chicago and the stories of the communities that shape it.

At the center of safronia is the Booker family, returning to their Southern hometown after five years of exile in the North. Their journey back, undertaken to bury their patriarch, becomes both a literal and symbolic homecoming: a confrontation with a past left unresolved and a reckoning with the displacement, aspiration, and ancestral memory that characterize the Great Migration. As the Bookers trace their steps southward — driven by the mercurial, even vengeful title character — they navigate a landscape where the familiar blends with the uncanny, and where memory carries as much weight as the present moment. In young’s libretto, the boundaries between history and myth dissolve, creating a world in which the spirits of the past accompany the living, guiding — or troubling — their path home.

safronia continues young’s artistic relationship with Lyric, which began with his widely acclaimed contributions to the innovative Twilight: Gods in 2021. In that pandemic-era presentation, young’s poetic narration connected scenes and helped reformulate Wagner’s Ring cycle as a site-specific, communal experience. safronia marks the Chicago native’s first foray into opera, penning both the score and the libretto himself.

The opera’s title evokes both a character and a sensibility: safronia herself becomes a figure through which the cycles of departure and return, banishment and reclamation, are amplified. Through her, the narrative examines the ways families preserve stories, endure trauma, and summon resilience across generations. The work unfolds in vignettes and ritual-like passages, echoing the oral traditions from which much of young’s art emerges. 

Musically, safronia is rooted in the idioms that have long defined African American expression. young writes with an ear trained by the church and the street, blending vernacular forms with operatic writing to create a sound world both familiar and entirely new to the operatic stage. Call-and-response patterns, harmonic language drawn from gospel traditions, percussive vocal textures, and electric-blues melodic lines contribute to a unique sonic palette.

Through its fusion of poetry, music, and movement, safronia offers an experience both intimate and monumental, grounded in individual story yet resonant with collective history. Lyric is pleased to present this celebration of cultural legacies that have shaped both Chicago and the nation — and offers audiences an opportunity to reflect on their own inheritances.