THE POST OFFICE
THE POST OFFICE
music by Laura Kaminsky
words by Elaine Sexton
Design by Charles Renfro, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
A blistering conflict erupts between two postal workers, and their customers and neighbors, who all struggle to find common ground in a one-room Post Office that could be anywhere in America, a place of escalating toxicity. The Post Office itself, in a unique design by Charles Renfro, is a character, containing multitudes, in this contemporary chamber opera, where the ghost of Benjamin Franklin, founder of the U.S. postal service, laments the threat to his legacy and to democracy itself.
Creative team
LAURA KAMINSKY (music) frequently addresses social and political issues in her work with a distinct musical language that is “full of fire as well as ice, contrasting dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection.” (American Record Guide). Her first opera, AS ONE (co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed, AOP-commissioned and developed) is the most produced 21st century opera since its 2014 BAM premiere, with 65+ productions internationally. In addition to AS ONE and THE POST OFFICE, she has composed 7 other operas in the past decade that have been produced across the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and South America. Her chamber music and instrumental works have been performed widely by acclaimed artists, including pianists Ursula Oppens, Jenny Lin, Mackenzie Melemed, Margaret Kampmeier; and Idith Meshulam; the Fry Street, Cassatt, and Carpe Diem String Quartets; Sybarite 5; Quintet of the Americas, Ensemble Pi, and Hub New Music. She recently completed a score for PBS's Poetry in America. She is on the faculty at SUNY Purchase and Boston Conservatory/Berklee. laurakaminsky.com
Laura Kaminsky
Music
ELAINE SEXTON (words) is a poet, librettist, critic, and educator. Her latest collection of poems is Site Specific: New & Selected (Grid Books, 2025). Her four previous books of poetry are: Sleuth (New Issues, 2003), Causeway (New Issues, 2008), Prospect/Refuge (Sheep Meadow Press, 2015), and Drive (Grid Books, 2022). Her poems, art reviews, book reviews, and works in visual art have appeared in journals and anthologies, textbooks and websites, and include American Poetry Review, Art in America, Poetry, Ploughshares, and O! the Oprah Magazine.
In addition to The Post Office, she wrote the text for After Stonewall, co-commissioned by the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), and Five Boroughs Music Festival, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.
Sexton teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and has been guest faculty at New York University and City College (CUNY). She regularly teaches poetry at arts and writing programs and centers in the U.S. and abroad.
Elaine Sexton
Words
Charles Renfro joined Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in 1997 and became a Partner in 2004. Charles has led many of DS+R’s most significant performing arts projects, including the expansion of The Juilliard School at Lincoln Center, the Tianjin Juilliard School in China, and the Prior Performing Arts Center at the College of the Holy Cross. He is leading the design of the new home for the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance in Harlem, and Sarofim Hall, a new facility for Rice University’s Visual Arts department. In collaboration with choreographer Jonah Bokaer, Charles led the environmental design for performance pieces such as Indecent Spaces and Late Nights on Air. Prior to that, he collaborated with the Australian Dance Theatre on Be Your Self. Charles is a National Academy of Design Academician, has received the 2015 Texas Medal of the Arts Award, and has appeared twice on the Out100 list. He is also involved with BOFFO, an organization that supports the work of queer LGBTQ+ BIPOC artists.
Charles Renfro, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Design
Libretto excerpt
Audio Excerpt from THE POST OFFICE workshop with Cincinatti Opera, March 22, 2025:
THE POST OFFICE, Scene 3 excerpt, Sarah sings directly to Benjamin Franklin (ghost):
"Words mattered to you.
Decency mattered.
Honesty and humor mattered.
You believed in the common good.
You changed one word,
“sacred,”
to be “self evident,”
as in: We hold these truths,
these truths…. to be
self-evident.
To hold anything “sacred” is
the language of gods, and kings,
of despots (you said),
Not the law.
Here is your legacy
your post office––
your mess."
Information
Duration 70' / no intermission
Commission Queen City Opera. March 2025 workshop by Opera Fusion: New Works, Cincinnati
Premiere
Roles 5 singers (1 soprano, 1 mezzo-soprano, 1 tenor, 1 baritone, 1 bass-baritone)
Instrumentation Piano