A new opera based on the life of Emmett Till is receiving the ire of opera fans who want the production stopped.
According to PIX11 News, a Change.org petition of over 12,000 signatures is calling for the cancellation of Emmett Till, A New American Opera, set to debut Mar. 23-24 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theatre at John Jay College. The opera focuses on Till’s tragic death at the hands of two white men in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman, which was later revealed to be false. The opera is based on Clare Coss’ play Emmett, Down In My Heart. Coss also wrote the libretto. While Coss, who is white, is behind the creation of the opera, she worked with Black composer Mary D. Watkins.
Mya Bishop, a student at John Jay College, launched the petition because she felt that the opera made a mockery of the lives of Black children who have been killed by white violence.
“Clare Coss has creatively centered her white guilt by using this play to make the racially motivated brutal torture and murder of a 14-year-old child about her self and her white feelings,” Bishop wrote.
However, Cross told PIX 11 News that her opera doesn’t center whiteness.
Despite this, the Black Opera Alliance has issued a statement about the opera on Instagram, writing that they as a group “denounce the telling of this historic story by a white woman and from a white vantage point.”
“While we feel for the Black people involved in this opera, we do not support the rehashing of Black trauma for white entertainment,” the group continued.
