The Mother of Us All

Scene from a 2020 performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Mother of Us All is a two-act opera composed by Virgil Thomson to a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Thomson and Stein met in 1945 to begin the writing process, almost twenty years after their first collaborative project, the opera Four Saints in Three Acts.[1] Stein wrote the libretto in the winter of 1945–46 before sending it to Thomson in March. After Stein's death in July, Thomson began working on the score, which he finished within just a few months.[2] The opera centers around Susan B. Anthony, one of the major figures in the fight for women's suffrage in the United States, with a supporting cast of characters both fictional and based on other historical figures.[1] Thomson famously described the work as a "pageant".[2][1]

  1. ^ a b c Rockwell, John (2002). "Mother of Us All, The". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O005264. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
  2. ^ a b Lister, Rodney (2010). "Another Completely Interesting Opera: 'The Mother of Us All' Part I: History and Background". Tempo. 64 (254): 2–10. doi:10.1017/S0040298210000379. ISSN 0040-2982. JSTOR 40928896. S2CID 146908675.