“...my art will stand tall,
sure as justice is true.”

EDMONIA, the opera,

relates the compelling story of Edmonia Lewis and celebrates this undaunted 19th-century Black and Native American (Ojibwe) sculptor who carved out her artistic identity against all odds and, in so doing, impacted the life and culture of her times and beyond.

The opera was originally commissioned in 2000 by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, with collaboration from poet Yusef Komunyakaa. Musically set by Bill Banfield, the opera presents an artistic rendering of Lewis' extraordinary life, travel, and career in Oberlin, Boston, Florence, Italy, Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia at a time when travel, career, and sometimes life itself were not accessible to Black and Native American women.