Lincoln Center Opera About Eric Garner Casts Spotlight On Police Violence

Jonathan Berger’s new chamber opera, The Ritual of Breath is the Rite to Resist, will premiere at Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City festival. The opera commemorates the ten-year anniversary of Eric Garner’s killing at the hands of police.

The scoop: This summer, the Jonathan Berger chamber opera about Eric Garner, The Ritual of Breath is the Rite to Resist, will be performed at Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City festival. With a libretto by the poet Vivee Francis, the opera highlights social injustices as well as the horrors of police violence. The libretto focuses around the daughter of Eric Garner, Erica, while sharing other stories of Black peoples’ deaths at the hands of police. The scor contains homages to jazz and Marvin Gaye, and is accompanied by drawings and paintings by the artist, Enrico Riley. A 90-person choir will be spread across the stage during the performance.

A bit more: After premieres at Dartmouth College and Stanford University in 2022, the Lincoln Center production will take place in Damrosch Park.

The creators of the piece, who connected as fellow Prix de Rome recipients, hope to spur activism as well as to commemorate the lives of Black people killed at the hands of authorities. Those wishing to engage further are invited to visit the opera’s community rituals website.

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Sara Schabas

Sara Schabas is a Dora-nominated soprano, writer and yoga teacher. She has performed and created leading roles with companies including Vancouver Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, the Dayton Opera, and Aspen Opera, and is a former member of Barbara Hannigan’s Equilibrium Young Artists. Currently based in Montreal, she is a doctoral student at McGill University — where she recently received the Wirth Vocal Prize — and editor of Art Song Canada magazine.