Chicago’s world premiere of avery r. young’s new opera offers a powerful meditation on family, faith.

Last weekend, Lyric Opera of Chicago staged its world premiere of Safronia, a new work by avery r. young, Chicago’s inaugural poet laureate and a celebrated interdisciplinary artist.

“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.

Chicago’s inaugural poet laureate makes his Lyric mainstage debut with “safronia,” loosely based on his family’s own Great Migration story.

Safronia, a story about the Great Migration premiers at The Lyric Opera.

avery r. young was the first poet laureate of the city of Chicago. Now he has created an opera called safronia, which will be performed Friday and Saturday, April 17th-18th, at the Lyric Opera House, located at 20 N. Wacker Drive.

avery r. young featured in In the Loop with Sasha-Ann Simons

“Multihyphenate artist, performer, and Chicago’s inaugural Poet Laureate avery r. young” has announced the “world premiere of ‘safronia,’ a new Afro-Surrealist opera written and composed by young and commissioned by Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The Lyric Opera’s new season encompasses two world premieres, two Lyric premieres, three new-to-Chicago productions, more Movie Nights at Lyric, a solo recital by one of opera’s most legendary stars, and musical theater performances.

DOWNTOWN — The Lyric Opera of Chicago just announced its 2025-26 season, and its jam-packed schedule features two new world premieres by two pioneering Chicago artists: a reimagining of The Smashing Pumpkins’ most acclaimed album by frontman Billy Corgan and a familial Great Migration story by Chicago’s first poet laureate, avery r. young.

The world premiere of "A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness" will be on stage at Lyric Opera House in late November.

Also, Chicago's first-ever poet laureate, avery r. young, will present his second collaboration with the Lyric in April 2026. It’s called "safronia," in which he writes and stars in. It's billed as a personal story about the Great Migration.

To support. To love. To care. That's what "Mama" Nikki Giovanni meant to Chicago Poet Laureate Avery R. Young. Colleagues through the arts community, Young revered Giovanni's work and shared a few laughs with the legendary poet during her life.

Poet avery r. young says tables that extend and invite the displaced to eat pasteles, pozole, pierogi, pizza and collard greens.