musical OPERA America Members Portal
Login      

Locust
Composer:Anne Guzzo
Librettist:Jeffrey Lockwood
Synopsis
Locust is an environmental murder mystery in which solving the century-old extinction of an iconic species provides lessons for the modern world. The ghost of the Rocky Mountain locust compels a scientist to figure out how a creature that once blackened the skies of the West survives only in stories (e.g., Little House on the Prairie). The opera is based on Jeffrey Lockwood’s highly acclaimed book, Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier (Basic, 2004), which Pulitzer Prize winning author Annie Proulx described as, “Gripping... fascinating... an entomological thriller.”

PLOT SYNOPSIS
SCENE 1 (the prairie)
During a modern-day grasshopper outbreak on western grasslands, an entomologist dozes off and is visited by the ghost of the Rocky Mountain locust who promises to haunt the scientist until he finds her killer. He is awakened by a rancher who says this outbreak is not as bad as the 1880s, when great grandfather was driven from his Nebraska homestead by the greatest locust swarm in human history.

SCENE 2 (the scientist’s home)
While pouring over old records, the entomologist develops hypotheses to explain the locust’s demise. But each time as he begins to doze, the ghost appears to tell him why his explanation fails (changes in climate, fire patterns, and bison ecology in the 1800s). No change seems to be large or fast enough to account for the extinction of such a vast species. The ghost tells him than an answer will come through story—and reminds him that even she had times and places of vulnerability.

SCENE 3 (the prairie)
The scientist listens to the rancher’s tale of his great grandfather’s exodus to the fertile river valleys of the Rockies, where farmers transformed the land. The rancher leaves for a church gathering. As the entomologist nods off, the locust’s ghost arrives. With her prompting, he finally understands the extinction. Farmers unwittingly destroyed the highly localized sanctuaries that sustained the species between outbreaks—not premeditated murder but accidental extinction. He asks the ghost if her species might still exist in a pocket of intact habitat. She replies that even if a few survived, they would no longer be the Rocky Mountain locust, for “we are what we do”—and we no longer fill the skies. And if humans discovered these remnants would the insects fare any better than the last bits of old growth forest? What have you learned?

Title Information

All information is derived from OPERA America's Season Schedule of Performances and titles databases which date back to 1991. OPERA America is constantly updating this data. If you feel that a work or an artist has been omitted or that information is incorrect, please use the linked forms below.
Title Information Form
Artist Information Form

Approximate Runtime (hh:mm)
0:45

Number of Acts
3



 
STORED ADMIN COOKIE *
actor id: 0
name:
company:
email
ind id: 0
memb level: 0
expiration date: 12:00:00 AM
current url: /Applications/NAWD/titles.aspx
Login As
* Visible only to OPERA America Administrators for testing purposes. Shows security cookie contents.
 
 
————
National Opera Center
330 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001
212.796.8620   •   Info@operamerica.com
CONNECT WITH US
                 

PARTNERS
 
Terms of Service   •   Privacy Policy   •   Copyright Policy   © Copyright 1995–2024 OPERA America Inc.