UK performers premier new opera ‘Nation of Others’ on impact of immigrants
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- UK Opera Theatre premieres Moravec and Campbell’s opera about Ellis Island migrants.
- Production links student performers, historical research and contemporary debate.
- World premiere aims to anchor future stagings and refresh opera’s public relevance.
They step forward on a crowded stage to tell their stories.
An Irish fisherman dreams of working on a boat in the United States, free from the conflict in his homeland.
Farmers rhapsodize about land with “richer soil.”
A woman carefully instructs her son to hide the disability that may prompt immigration officials to reject them.
An Armenian man dies from pneumonia on Ellis Island asking God why he was able to make the whole journey only to not see the United States.
Composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell’s opera “A Nation of Others” puts the stories of the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” in Emma Lazarus’ iconic poem on the Statue of Liberty to music, finding operatic drama in the stories of humble people forced to find new homes and clinging to the promise of America on Ellis Island in 1921.
“You sense these parallel experiences, even though they’ve come from completely different places, and it really gives a sense like that overview effect that they talk about astronauts having when they see the world from above — that they feel like that engenders a greater love for their fellow human being,” says stage director Sarah Ina Meyers, who is directing the world premiere production of the opera for the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre. “There’s something about the opera that is conveying that message: We are all tied to each other.”
The opera, with performances Friday through Sunday at the Lexington Opera House, comes from the same team that created “Sanctuary Road,” an opera about the Underground Railroad that UK Opera Theatre presented last year. The weekend after that production, UK Opera presented a workshop performance of “A Nation of Others,” with plans to produce the world premiere here already underway.
UK Opera Theatre director Everett McCorvey said these were important stories to tell with Lexington’s 250th anniversary last year and the United States 250th anniversary this year.
While there is hope in the United States’ promise in the opera, it also portrays hardships people immigrating to the U.S.A. faced on Ellis Island and as they settled in the country.
“It’s not rose-colored glasses,” Meyers says, also acknowledging, along with McCorvey, how controversial immigration currently is in the United States.
“We have to commemorate all of it,” McCorvey says. “We have to tell that story, and we have to be unashamed of telling that story. It’s history. I wanted to make sure that our students had an important part of telling stories about our country.”
William Middleton, a first -year master’s student who plays one of the Ellis Island immigration officials says, “Most of my family came in through Ellis Island. That’s just how we got here. We all came from Europe, and I think it’s really important to talk about, especially in today’s climate, with everything that’s going on, just the importance of immigration to this country when it’s what America was created with.”
CoryOn Brooks, a freshman from Paducah, does not have the personal connection to Ellis Island Middleton does, but shares the sense of importance in telling the story of Immigration’s role in the United States.
“It is a powerful and prevalent story in today’s world,” Brooks says. “We all are lucky to be a part of this. A lot of people don’t understand how much of a big deal it is for UK to be putting on this show. That’s rare with universities and educational institutions for them to be premiering operas. We are particularly blessed to be able to have the opportunity to put this show on, and to be able to help tell the story.”
Not long after that workshop production, the project was met with tragedy when “Sanctuary Road” director Dennis Whitehead Darling, who was set to direct “A Nation of Others,” was killed in an accident in New York City. After grieving the loss, McCorvey said several people said Meyers was the obvious choice to see the show through.
“I have been obsessed with Ellis Island for a while, and I’ve been talking to Mark and Paul about this piece for some time because of my obsession with Ellis Island,” Meyers says.
The production’s creative team focused a lot of attention on getting details of Ellis Island right, including trips to the historical site to get visual details in the set, costumes, and digital images right.
“The walk through the hospital all by itself, you just feel it in terms of, you walk in, and you feel the presence of the people,” McCorvey says.
As the world premiere, UK’s production becomes a reference point of sorts for other productions to come, and it does so with an opera that shows the art form is far from a museum piece. At one point talking about music Moravec is still writing for the opera this week, McCorvey punctuates the story saying he can, “because he’s alive!”
You can’t ask Mozart for a few extra bars of music, he and Meyers joke. McCorvey says some of the music, particularly a trio sung mourning the passing of the Armenian man, may become standard vocal repertoire, in years to come.
McCorvey says, “We’re trying to show our students that opera is relevant, that it’s alive, and it’s telling amazing stories.”
‘A Nation of Others’, presented by the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre
When: March 6 and 7 at 7:30 p.m.; March 8 at 2 p.m.
Where: Lexington Opera House, 405 West Short St.
Tickets: lexingtonoperahouse.com, 859-233-3535
This story was originally published March 3, 2026 at 4:55 AM.