American Apollo Receives World Premiere • July 2024
Des Moines, Iowa
Photo by Cory Weaver
Damien Geter and Lila Palmer's American Apollo makes its full-length world premiere at Des Moines Metro Opera, giving voice to a pivotal figure in American art: Thomas Eugene McKeller, a Black hotel worker who served as model and muse for famous society portraitist John Singer Sargent.
A powerhouse trio – Justin Austin as McKeller, William Burden as Sargent, and Mary Dunleavy as Isabel Stewart Gardner – expertly leads this powerful new work as it explores themes of erasure, power and class dynamics, the white gaze, and the developing relationship between the two men.
Critical Acclaim
Photo by Cory Weaver
“American Apollo presents a fantasy of what might have been—perhaps Sargent’s own fantasy. At the same time, it fashions a complex portrait of McKeller, who, as a part-time contortionist, submits willingly to Sargent’s gaze. What bothers him is that Sargent erases his Blackness, inserting his body into whitewashed mythological tableaux. The libretto, by Lila Palmer, mixes poetry and prose. But it includes enough documentary material that it seems as much a work of observation as one of invention. If it isn’t Literaturoper, it’s Künstleroper—scenes from the lives of artists and their subjects. Sargent, Gardner tells a skeptical McKeller, confers immortality: ‘In his eyes you’ll live forever.’ A harmonic question mark at the end of the opera leaves the ethics of that transaction unresolved.”
–The New Yorker
“When Palmer and Geter delve into the emotional intimacy and fervor of the relationship [between McKeller and Sargent], the opera blossoms. Palmer’s libretto deals forthrightly with the complexities of its central theme—the power imbalance between a prominent white man and a working-class black one, exemplified by the fact that Sargent’s MFA paintings of McKeller’s body show him as white, with classical heads instead of his own.”
–The Wall Street Journal
“One of the most impactful things a work can do is give visibility to an erased, hidden or forgotten figure, and do so with dignity and humanity. A collaboration between Geter and Palmer did precisely that. It fearlessly dug into the reality of fetishisation, the way black lives are treated as disposable and the complexities of relationships along the lines of race, age and class. Palmer expertly shows rather than tells, after the scorned rage of Nicole D’Inverno, we are outraged by Sargent, then opening our hearts to him when he prays for McKeller to simply hold him, as they believably fall into one another’s comfort again. A theme throughout is that even in a warring world, beauty is a need - this work is testament to that, that art should challenge us, give us a clearer view of the world around us, and is absolutely necessary.”
–Opera Now
“Broadway musicals get weeks and sometimes months of tryouts and previews in front of audiences before their official opening night. Operas have no such safeguards. They are judged by the critics and the public at the very first performance. American Apollo is clearly a major work that deserves future productions in other opera houses.”
–Classical Voice North America
“American Apollo could hardly have been more of an ‘occasion.’ This intriguing musical exploration of the artistic and personal relationship between famed New England artist John Singer Sargent and his model Thomas Eugene McKeller has a lot going for it, not least of which is the abundance of prodigious talent evident in composer Geter and librettist Palmer. Palmer has quite masterfully fleshed out the possible character relationship between Sargent and McKeller. She has pieced together a rather convincing probability that the two became intimate, and that an initial raw, suppressed physical attraction by the homosexual Sargent for this model, grew inevitably to a co-dependent emotional and professional bond. It is a testament to the power of the message of love and inclusion, and the quality of the talent involved, that when the stage lights dimmed at the end of the performance, the SRO audience rose as one in the dark, and didn’t wait a moment to launch into a teary-eyed roar of approval that grew into a prolonged, emotional ovation. An ‘occasion,’ indeed, and one to be treasured.”
–Opera Today