A Tempo: Performances Bring New Voices, Perspectives to Stage

Published October 27, 2022 at 5:30 AM EDT

Ballet Hispanico will bring its production of Dona Peron — Ballet Hispánico will bring its production of *Doña Peron* to The Kennedy Center next month.

A Tempo this week looks at Ballet Hispánico's Doña Peron, an effort to reclaim the story of the iconic and complex Latina figure, and The Dessoff Choirs' upcoming performance of music by Vicente Lusitano, a Portuguese Renaissance composer of African descent.

A Tempo continues its exploration of how performing arts organizations are seeking to bring new voices and perspectives to their stages. This week, host Rachel Katz speaks with Ballet Hispánico Artistic Director and CEO Eduardo Vilaro about its first full-length commissioned opera, Doña Peron, which premiered this past Spring and will be performed next month at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The ballet examines the life and complexity of Eva Peron as a woman and Latina icon, and features choreographer by a Latina choreographer. The program also includes a conversation with mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford, who will be the soloist in the Duruflé Requiem with The Dessoff Choirs, which will also perform motets and madrigals by Vicente Lusitano, a Portuguese Renaissance composer of African descent, who is now being recognized as the first Black composer to have his work published. Although Bradford does not sing in those works, she talks about how adding works by composers of traditionally marginalized works to programs enhances the richness of the musical repertoire.