Dave Ragland, One Vote Won (2020)

When I saw, okay, here's another opera by a black composer, I felt that I had to see it, given how I was talking last time (okay, two times ago).  Was that a good idea?  Well...

So there's a woman.  Apparently her name is Gloria, though I'm not sure if she's named in the text.  It's election day but she doesn't want to vote because voting is for total squares and nothing will ever change and she'd rather just watch shows on streaming services, but then the ghosts of Juno Frankie Pierce and Diane Nash (who isn't actually dead, but whatevz--in fairness, the piece does suggest that these may not actually be real ghosts, though I have no idea what they are in that case--they certainly SEEM to have an independent existence) appear to tell her about how, in fact, voting is hell of rad and she must do it!  Go!  Vote!  So she does.  That's it.

Now, at this point, you may be thinking, dude, this sounds absolutely unbearable.  But I am here to tell you that...you ain't wrong.  This is total cringe start to finish.  Yes, obviously, you gotta vote, but these exhortations to do so that are totally drained of any actual ideology are just risible.  If Gloria knows nothing about politics and has no idea who to vote for, what is the purpose of this?  All she's going to do is add a tiny element of randomness to the proceedings.  It was released in August 2020, so maybe it's implicitly telling the audience to specifically vote against Fascist Fuckface, and if it caused someone to do that, great (although I have my doubts).  But the message here as presented is completely vacuous.

And, of course, there's also the fact that we're living in a time where the idea of telling people that they can vote to make a difference does kinda seem like a bad joke.  At one point, the opera lists black people murdered by the police, by name.  That's as political as it ever gets, but given that Biden's answer to the problem of police brutality is to give them more money, I really don't know what it thinks voting is possibly going to accomplish.  You could say it's more about local elections, but in that case, ol' Gloria's even LESS likely to know how she should vote.

I mean ferfucksake, OF COURSE you should vote in spite of everything.  But I have to say, I found this piece kind of enraging, and if anything, it makes me want to never vote again.  The music isn't bad; a kind of peppy jazzy, bluesy thing (and Tamica Nicole as Gloria does the best she can with not much), but MAN ALIVE.  I know it means well, but the result is not pretty.  Direct your talents to a libretto more worthy of them, Ragland!