Fellow Travelers

Fellow Travelers is an opera in 16 scenes composed by Gregory Spears to a libretto by Greg Pierce, based on Thomas Mallon's 2007 novel Fellow Travelers. A co-commission by Cincinnati Opera and G. Sterling Zinsmeyer, the opera was developed by Opera Fusion: New Works, a collaboration between Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music which focuses on the creation of new American operas. Fellow Travelers premiered at Cincinnati Opera in June 2016 and was presented by the Lyric Opera of Chicago in March 2018, the Minnesota Opera in June 2018, and Boston Lyric Opera in November 2019. Roles Synopsis The opera is set during the McCarthy era of the 1950s and focuses on the "lavender scare", a witch hunt and mass firings of gay people from the United States government. The story centers on the love affair between two men working for the federal government—Hawkins "Hawk" Fuller, a State Department official, and Timothy Laughlin, a recent college graduate working in a senator's office. Scenes