ACC Music
Opera Workshop
Maya and the Magic Ring
Directed by Dr. Blythe Cates & Dr. Wayne Davis
Dr. Valeria Diaz, piano
Friday, April 24th & Saturday, April 25th
7:00 PM
Highland Recital Hall
Friday, April 24th & Saturday, April 25th
7:00 PM
Highland Recital Hall
Maya: Savanna Clapp+ & Diana Vega*
Grandmother: Ansleigh Yates
Genie: Jose Vélasquez
Cat: Brian Rouston
Unicorn: Wayne Davis
*denotes Friday night performer
+denotes Saturday night performer
At her grandmother’s house for the afternoon, Maya is too bored to finish her third-grade homework. When her grandmother steps outside to garden, she plays with the cat and her toy unicorn. Searching through her grandmother’s cedar chest, she finds a beautiful ruby ring.
Polishing her new treasure, Maya is astonished to confront an ancient genie. The genie is likewise amazed to find himself in the kingdom of Missouri. He announces that Maya will be granted three wishes but adds that she must make them quickly. The last person kept him waiting for fifty years without making a final wish. “Be careful what you wish for,” he advises.
Eager to have a playmate, Maya wishes that her cat could talk. The transformed cat proves an uncooperative companion. He demands to be in charge of everything, including Maya. As he wreaks havoc, Maya then wishes her toy unicorn would help her control the power-mad feline.
The swaggering unicorn only exacerbates the problem. As the two animals launch into comical battle, they reduce the living room to chaos. The amused genie then demands the flustered Maya make her final wish. Her surprising choice brings the magical antics to an end and the opera to an unexpectedly tender conclusion.
Synopsis by Dana Gioia
Photo Credit: Brittany Florenz
Described by Fanfare Magazine as “one of the most talented and intriguing of living composers,” LORI LAITMAN has composed operas, choral works, and over 350 songs, setting texts by classical and contemporary poets, including those who perished in the Holocaust. Laitman’s music is praised for its uniqueness, craft and beauty: “unmistakable sense of identity…masterful skill” (Opera News); “artistry of the highest order” (Textura.org); “gripping and thought-provoking” (American Record Guide). She’s received commissions from the BBC, The Royal Philharmonic Society, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera America, Opera Colorado, Seattle Opera, Washington National Opera Chorus, Grant Park Music Festival, Music of Remembrance, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and others.
Three of Laitman’s full-length operas have received their world premieres over the past decade. Opera Colorado’s world premiere of The Scarlet Letter (to David Mason’s libretto based on the Hawthorne) was recorded by Naxos and named an Opera News Critic’s Choice. The recording also made Fanfare Magazine’s Top 5 CDs of 2018. A comic and magical tone sets the stage for The Three Feathers, Laitman’s fairy tale opera with librettist Dana Gioia. Commissioned and premiered by the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech in 2014, the opera has received numerous subsequent presentations. Uncovered, Laitman’s opera with librettist Leah Lax (based on her memoir), examines a woman’s right to choose and premiered in 2022. Laitman frequently collaborates with stage director and dramaturg Beth Greenberg, who directed each of these world premieres.
Maya and the Magic Ring is Laitman’s second family opera with Gioia. The work was commissioned by Lyric Opera of Kansas City and it premiered in March 2025. And with librettist Mason she is also at work on Ludlow, an epic American immigrant tragedy that explores the 1914 Colorado coal mining massacre.
Laitman continues to devote a substantial portion of her catalog to sharing stories about the Holocaust. Music of Remembrance has commissioned several works, including Vedem (2010), to David Mason’s libretto about the boys of Terezin and their secret magazine, and Wertheim Park (2022), setting the late poet Susan de Sola’s homage to Dutch Jews who perished under the Nazis. In 2022, Indianapolis Opera presented a staged version of Vedem.
Since 2000, Laitman has been a frequent guest composer at universities across the country. She and composer Tom Cipullo founded the NATS Mentoring Program for Composers in 2020, and in 2024, they received The American Academy of Teachers of Singing award for their efforts in developing and overseeing this program. Laitman is also the advisor and benefactor for the NATS Art Song Composition Award, and funds a fellowship for composers at The Yale School of Music, which awarded her the Ian Mininberg Alumni Award for Distinguished Service in May 2018.
With releases on Naxos, Signum, Acis, Albany and other labels, her discography is extensive. She has been featured on Thomas Hampson’s Song of America radio, Internet series and website, and is in The Grove Dictionary of American Music.
A magna cum laude Yale College graduate, Laitman received her MM from Yale School of Music. For more information, please visit www.artsongs.com