Baseball and opera usually don’t end up in the same sentence. But for the next year, they will in Detroit.
Next May, the Michigan Opera Theatre will be producing Daniel Sonenberg’s The Summer King, an opera about Negro League’s baseball player Josh Gibson.
The CEO of the Michigan Opera Theatre Wayne Brown joined Stateside to tell us about a partnership between the Michigan Opera Theatre and the Detroit Tigers, called Take Me Out to the Opera.
The effort includes community activities and classroom opportunities for Detroit students, and will culminate with the production of an opera about baseball. Take Me Out to the Opera will explore the way arts and sports bring people together, especially across racial lines.
“We as a community consist of various experiences and aspects of life throughout the greater Detroit area,” Brown said. “We want to bring them together through this opera work that will be a celebration of baseball.”
Listen above for the whole conversation.
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