Four Saints in Three Acts

About

Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera composed in 1928 by Virgil Thomson, setting a libretto written in 1927 by Gertrude Stein. It contains about 20 saints and is in at least four acts. It was groundbreaking in form, content, and for its all-black cast, with singers directed by Eva Jessye, a prominent black choral director, and supported by her choir. Thomson suggested the topic, and the libretto as delivered can be read in Stein's collected works. The opera features two 16th-century Spanish saints—the former mercenary Ignatius of Loyola and the mystic Teresa of Avila—as well as their colleagues, real and imagined: St. Plan, St. Settlement, St. Plot, St. Chavez, etc. Thomson decided to divide St. Teresa's role between two singers, "St. Teresa I" and "St. Teresa II", and added the master an...