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JEFFREY BROWN:
Backstage at the Detroit Opera House, chorus members of the Michigan theater warmed up for their performance of a new work, the tale of almost mythic horror, but based on a true story of a slave named Margaret Garner.
In 1856, the news shocked a nation heading toward Civil War: A mother who escaped her Kentucky master and, upon capture in Ohio, killed her own child rather than have her forced back into a life of slavery. More than a century later, the story served as a basis for Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Beloved.”
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RICHARD DANIELPOUR:
See, now that it’s lit up, you’ll see it differently. Let me show you.
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JEFFREY BROWN:
And now, Morrison and composer Richard Danielpour have teamed up to give Margaret Garner’s story a new life. For both, it’s a first attempt at opera.
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TONI MORRISON:
I came to it with the strength and trust of my knowing what that story was and what it was about and what was at stake.
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JEFFREY BROWN:
In this new version of the story, the slave family survives through hard work and love.