Around the Arts

Nobel prize winner\ncollaborates on slave opera \nDETROIT -- Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison is collaborating on an opera based on the life of an escaped slave who tried to kill her family to avoid returning to captivity.\nMichigan Opera Theatre and opera companies in Philadelphia and Cincinnati commissioned the work by Morrison and American composer Richard Danielpour. It's scheduled to premiere at the Detroit Opera House in May 2005, with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves singing in the title role.\n"Margaret Garner" is based on Garner's flight from Kentucky to the free state of Ohio in 1856. The story also inspired Morrison's 1987 novel "Beloved."\nWhen slave-hunters tracked down Garner, her husband and children, she slit her baby daughter's throat as part of a thwarted attempt to kill the family to avert a return to slavery.\nShe was found guilty of "destroying property" and returned to slavery.\n"I wanted a work that had genuine resonance for Detroit," Michigan Opera Theatre general director David DiChiera said Wednesday. About 83 percent of Detroit's 950,000 people are black.\nThe cost of $1.2 million to $1.6 million is being shared equally by Michigan Opera Theatre, the Cincinnati Opera and the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Performances in Cincinnati and Philadelphia will follow.\nDirector discusses 'Gettysburg,' follow-up 'Gods and Generals'\nRICHMOND, Va. -- Director Ron Maxwell described his new Civil War film, "Gods and Generals," as an epic and an intimate family photo album.\nThe Richmond premiere of the movie, starring Jeff Daniels and Robert Duvall, was held Tuesday. The film opens Friday in theaters nationwide.\n"It's a story of our parents, our grandparents, who walked on this ground, shed blood on this ground," Maxwell told an audience of about 1,000 that included Gov. Mark R. Warner. "It's the cliche of brother against brother, it's about families divided, conflicting loyalties."\n"Gods and Generals" is a prequel to 1993's "Gettysburg."\n"This is about the examination of the American soul," Maxwell said. "Every character, black and white, had these choices to make."\n25-year-old takes top honor in Sphinx string competition\nDETROIT -- Bryan Hernandez-Luch, last year's senior division runner-up, took top honors in the annual Sphinx Competition for black and Hispanic string players under age 27.\nThanks to his victory Wednesday night at Orchestra Hall in Detroit, the 25-year-old violinist from West Valley City, Utah, will appear as a soloist with orchestras in Chicago, St. Louis and Philadelphia, among others.\nThe Sphinx Competition is produced each year by the Sphinx Organization, a national nonprofit group that promotes arts education, awareness and presentation.\nAbout 60 musicians submitted audition tapes for this year's competition; of those, 18 semifinalists were chosen to come to southeastern Michigan. Nine junior division semifinalists (under 18) and nine senior division semifinalists (18-26) were whittled down to three laureates apiece.\nElena Urioste, a 16-year-old violinist from North Wales, Pa., won the junior division.\nLast year's senior division winner, cellist Patrice Jackson, is performing with the Omaha Symphony later this month and the St. Louis Symphony in March. She's finishing at Yale University and will go on to Juilliard.\nLast year's junior division winner, Gareth Johnson, has played with the Boston Pops and the Baltimore and Atlanta symphonies.