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www.houseofruth.net www.ypal.org/emergingleaders 36 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.13 So two major roles with Kentucky Opera is a very big deal. "What we have with this season is what we've been working to achieve the last few years," Roth says. "We want to showcase young artists who are breaking out in their careers, who will come here and cut their teeth for the frst time in the roles." Composers, too. In October, Kentucky Opera and U of L's School of Music brought Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec and librettist Terry Teachout, the theater and drama critic of the Wall Street Journal, to Louisville for a Composer's Workshop and the premiere of their new opera Te King's Man. Te opera tells the story of a 1785 meeting in London between Benjamin Franklin and his illegitimate son William, who had sided with King George and England in the Revolutionary War. Te one-act opera was performed at Comstock Hall with just piano accompaniment — as a work in progress, with full scoring and fnal script completed here as part of the creative process. Te King's Man was paired with a previous one-act opera by Moravec and Teachout called Danse Russe, and staged with the U of L orchestra. It's a comedy about the people and events leading up to the premiere of Stravinsky's Te Rite of Spring in 1913 Paris — the one that sparked an audience riot. Before rehearsals began in early October, Teachout had said, "We think we've got a good show here, but we won't know until we get to town. Ten in two weeks of rehearsals we're going to fnd out if there are other things we need to do. Fixes we need to make. Whether we've made fundamental miscalculations. Or whether, alternatively, we may fnd out that a particular thing we've worked on in studio works onstage. Boy, that's the best feeling in the world." On opening night here, Moravec and Teachout revealed they've been commissioned to create an opera of the Stephen King novel Te Shining. One would imagine Kentucky Opera might be very interested in being one of the frst companies to present that. And maybe involved in nurturing its birth. You get the idea Roth would love to be in there with a piano, working out the kinks with the composers. "Tere is something fresh that drives me to these very raw works," Roth says. "Having the composer and librettist feeding of each other, working with the artists, fnding ideas they haven't even considered. "It is a very important role that we, Kentucky Opera, play in the industry. I look at the three legs of Kentucky Opera and see the development of new audience members, the development of new works and new productions, and the development and training of new artists." Ten all they've got to do is come in on budget, and live to sing another 62 years.