Director’s Note
Eboni Adams
My journey into opera has felt like walking toward a door I didn’t know was opening — or one I wasn’t sure I was allowed to walk through. Being chosen, or better yet, gifted, the opportunity to bring to life a story inspired by the remarkable legacy of Florence Price reminds me that sometimes the art form finds us before we recognize ourselves within it.
In shaping My Name is Florence through B.E. Boykin’s luminous music and Harrison Rivers’s fluid, dream-like text, I have often felt Florence’s presence — as though her life and artistry continue to move across space and time. Through the presence of mother, daughter, and the woman herself, we witness how memory, love, and perseverance are carried and returned across generations.
At the heart of her life and this story is the piano — a sanctuary of solace, expression, and defiance, where black and white keys found harmony the world often refused. Though this opera does not use Price’s original compositions, Boykin’s score carries the emotional resonance of her spirit — the lyricism, the ache, the resolve to be heard. Every scene, every costume, every shift in light echoes her brilliance — the sweep of classical form, the grounding of cultural memory, and the unwavering persistence of a woman determined to leave something lasting behind.
Learning her story is to meet a giant — a Black woman brilliant and unrelenting, who saw the world’s limits yet chose truth over convenience, craft over compromise, and legacy over silence. Her manuscripts, once hidden, waited for someone willing to truly see her. This opera celebrates that what was once overlooked is not lost, and that her contribution to classical music transcends erasure.
As we speak her name, may we offer Florence Price the flowers history withheld — a testament to the power of naming, remembering, and returning. And may you feel the invitation she offered me: to step into the spaces that call you, even before you understand why. A quiet affirmation that you are Plenty.
