The Most Famous Lesbian Couple of the 20th Century Get Their Own Opera

Sure wish I could see this!

The Most Famous Lesbian Couple of the 20th Century Get Their Own Opera
6.11.2014
By Brian Schaefer

The story of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and their legendary Paris salon comes to life in the new opera Twenty-Seven in St. Louis.

With all due respect to the trailblazing same-sex spouses that initiated this current tidal wave of marriage, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas have you beat: They were living in a very public de facto marriage more than a century ago.

“I like to think that their relationship in Paris was a prototypical gay American marriage,” says Royce Vavrek, librettist of the new opera Twenty-Seven, which dramatizes that relationship. “They lived on their own terms, boldly and beautifully… There’s something magical and sacred about it.”

Twenty-Seven premieres this week at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, composed by Ricky Ian Gordon and starring the renowned singers Stephanie Blythe and Elizabeth Futral as Stein and Toklas, respectively....

Much more at http://www.out.com/entertainment/music/2014/06/11/gertrude-stein-alice-toklas-famous-lesbian-couple-20th-century-get-their-own-opera