Review: ‘Safronia’ funks up the Lyric Opera in a potent premiere by avery r. young

“Safronia” is the story of the family patriarch, baar booker (sung by young himself), his wife magnolia (Maiesha McQueen) and baar’s daughter, safronia, and her husband, said Pullman Porter (Lorenzo Rush Jr.). In two acts, “safronia” explores both the impact of what happened to this family in 1912 and their subsequent desire to claim back what once belonged to them, even after the death of their patriarch. Death in young’s landscape of magical realism, for want of a better term, is decidedly less than final.

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