David Cote
David Cote
Opera
Blind Injustice
Montclair State University, New Jersey
January 2024
FROM 2024 PRESS RELEASE:
PEAK PERFORMANCES PRODUCES OPERA-IN-CONCERT BLIND INJUSTICE, WITH MUSIC BY SCOTT DAVENPORT RICHARDS, LIBRETTO BY DAVID COTE, STAGE DIRECTION BY ROBIN GUARINO, AND
MUSIC DIRECTION BY TED SPERLING, FEBRUARY 16 & 18, 2024
Blind Injustice tells the stories of six wrongfully incarcerated individuals and how they freed themselves with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project.Opera is based on the book Blind Injustice by Mark Godsey and subsequent interviews with the exonerated by David Cote.
PEAK Performances at Montclair State University is producing two opera-in-concert performances of Blind Injustice, composed by Montclair State University College of the Arts faculty member Scott Davenport Richards (A Star Across the Ocean, Charlie Crosses the Nation) with a libretto by David Cote (Three Way, The Scarlet Ibis). The performances—featuring 12 principal singers, a 12-member orchestra, and a chorus of 30—explore the true stories of six people who were tried, unjustly convicted, imprisoned, and who ultimately freed themselves with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP). It paints a damning portrait of how our country’s criminal justice system repeatedly fails not only the wrongfully accused but their families and communities—and offers hope for a shared future founded on justice and reform. Blind Injustice is based on the work of the OIP and the book of the same name by University of Cincinnati Professor of Law and OIP Co-founder and Director Mark Godsey. Robin Guarino is stage director and dramaturg, and Ted Sperling serves as music director and conductor.
Performances of Blind Injustice take place February 16 (at 7:30pm) & 18 (at 3pm) at the Alexander Kasser Theater (1 Normal Ave, Montclair, NJ) at Montclair State University. Each performance will be followed by a public conversation with Nancy Smith and Rickey Jackson—two exonerees represented in the piece—and Mark Godsey. Tickets can be purchased at PEAKperfs.org or 973-655-5112. Blind Injustice was originally commissioned by Cincinnati Opera, where it premiered to acclaim in 2019, with The Wall Street Journal deeming it a “powerful piece of music theater.” Following the stories of Nancy Smith, The East Cleveland 3 (Laurese Glover, Eugene Johnson, and Derrick Wheatt), Clarence Elkins, and Rickey Jackson, David Cote’s libretto amalgamates text from the exonerees’ oral histories, research, and accounts from Godsey’s book into a work balancing scathing critique and hope, emotional testimony and meticulous analysis. Richards challenges antiquated criteria for what constitutes opera, ascribing various musical styles and influences to each character in a composition whose flexibility of musical languages—jazz, funk, opera, musical theater, spoken word—allows it to dexterously flow between various storytelling modes and tones. At times, Richards’ composition upholds the colloquialism of its interview foundations, at others it mirrors and augments the libretto’s exploration of the insidious theatricality of the criminal justice system.
David Cote says, “It's a lot of story for a 90 minute opera, and it was exciting to tell it in a very breathless, cinematic and episodic way, with all of this variation — whether using language from exonerees’ interviews about their experiences of incarceration or Mark’s book’s detailing how, for example, not all forensic science is created equal. The forms it takes hopefully reflect how the criminal justice system feeds on storytelling and stereotypes: often on delusion. How you build a case against people, the adversarial nature of prosecutors versus defense, it all contributes to a kind of sick theatricality that helps to convict people, regardless of the truth.”
About David Cote (Librettist)
David Cote is a playwright, opera librettist, and arts journalist based in New York City. This season: Lucidity with composer Laura Kaminsky, co-commissioned by On Site Opera and Seattle Opera. Previous operas include Blind Injustice (Cincinnati Opera); Three Way (Nashville Opera and BAM); The Scarlet Ibis (Prototype Festival); and 600 Square Feet (Cleveland Opera Theater). David’s plays include The Müch, Saint Joe, and Otherland (O’Neill National Playwrights Conference finalist). He wrote the text for Nkeiru Okoye’s Black Lives Matter monodrama for baritone and orchestra, Invitation to a Die-In. His Cocoa Cantata is a modern-day sequel to Bach’s Coffee Cantata, composed by Robert Paterson. Recordings include Blind Injustice (NAXOS), Three Way (American Modern Recordings) and In Real Life (AMR). David’s TV and theater coverage appears in The A.V. Club, Observer, 4 Columns, and American Theatre. He was the longest serving theater editor and chief drama critic of Time Out New York. David is the author of popular companion books about the Broadway hits Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Spring Awakening, Jersey Boys, and Wicked. His writing has also appeared in Opera News, The Village Voice, The Guardian, and The New York Times. David is currently working on a grand opera about the artistry and activism of Paul Robeson with Scott Davenport Richards and a monodrama with Stefan Weisman for mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn about climate change and Greenland’s ice sheet.
About the Ohio Innocence Project
The Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) is a law clinic at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Fueled by the idealism and energy of law students, OIP investigates the cases of Ohio's incarcerated who claim they are innocent and were wrongfully convicted. The OIP is one of the most active and successful innocence projects in the country, and to date has secured the freedom of 42 innocent Ohioans who together served more than 900 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit.
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