Blessed with “an imagination that rather literally knows no bounds,” creator + librettist Cerise Jacobs “might be seen as having single handedly brought on a radically new operatic dispensation, to wit: librettist-driven opera” (La Scena Musicale). An opera developer of vision and irrepressible enthusiasm, she stands at the very center of each development process, initiating the concept, writing the text, and choosing the composer according to her libretto’s stylistic demands. Through her production company, White Snake Projects, an activist opera company, she produces original opera with high production values, investing in American composers adept at communicating stories of the collective imagination. Cerise’s first opera, Madame White Snake, composed by Zhou Long, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for music. Jacobs has gone on to create many original operas exploring subjects like mass incarceration, domestic violence, disability, and religious pluralism. One of her recent operas, Alice in the Pandemic, has been acquired by the Library of Congress Performing Arts COVID-19 Response Collection. Musical America has named Cerise one of the Top 30 Professionals of the Year in 2021 and a Mover & Shaper in 2017. She has also been selected as one of Boston’s 100 Most Influential People of Color in 2018.
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