What Belongs to You, with libretto and music by David T. Little, is the winner of the 2025 Award for Best New Opera, conferred by the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA). The award, which recognizes both musical and theatrical excellence, is given annually to an operatic world premiere presented in North America the previous calendar year.
The Best New Opera Award is determined by an Awards Committee of distinguished music critics. It reflects the overarching mission of MCANA to recognize distinctive achievements and, through its web publication Classical Voice North America, to communicate the richness of musical life in the U.S. and Canada at a time when classical music coverage in traditional print media is shrinking.
What Belongs to You, for tenor and sinfonietta, was premiered on September 26, 2024 at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, with Mark Morris directing and Karim Sulayman singing the lead role. Alan Pierson conducted Alarm Will Sound.
The work is based on author and cultural critic Garth Greenwell‘s eponymous 2016 novel, which “tells the story of a man caught between longing and resentment, unable to separate desire from danger, and faced with the impossibility of understanding those he most longs to know.” Greenwell’s novel won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for many other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the LA Times Book Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
The opera follows a long and tumultuous relationship, drawing on universal themes such as the search for oneself, the desire to belong, loneliness, and heartbreak. It looks back to look forward, taking inspiration in mysterious, erotic, and devotional music of Britten, Dowland, Monteverdi, Valentini, Schubert, and Grisey, and progresses in a series of distinct images which allow the meaning to gradually accumulate. Together, these allow it to feel both contemporary and connected to the past.
The premiere of What Belongs to You was received with great acclaim and garnered a feature in The New York Times. Opera Magazine praised the opera, stating that “Little often pushes the boundaries of a singer’s range… [and] Sulayman, for whom this role was created, ran the gamut from sweet major-mode lyricism in the aria ‘Kiss me’ to the violent rage stirred up by the death of the character’s homophobic father.” In his publication Night After Night, writer Steve Smith said he “was deeply moved by this ravishing, ambiguous, and frankly erotic creation.”
In response to winning the award, composer David T. Little said:
“What Belongs to You was a passion project from the start; a work I just had to write. To have such a work recognized with an award like this is, first and foremost, deeply meaningful. But that it was also created for and with such an exceptional cohort of dear friends and collaborators makes it doubly so. I share this award with all of them. The artists and supporters who collectively willed What Belongs to You into existence: Alan Pierson, Karim Sulayman, Mark Morris, Maile Okamura, Paul Brohan, Nancy Umanoff, Gavin Chuck, Annie Toth, and the extraordinary musicians of Alarm Will Sound; Linda H. and Richard N. Claytor, Ph.D., and Andrew Martin-Weber; everyone at Boosey & Hawkes and Primo Artists; my parents, and my partner Eileen Mack; and of course, Garth Greenwell, whose trust in allowing me to adapt his work has meant the world to me.”
Future performances of What Belongs to You are being planned in the United States and Europe, as is a recording on Cantaloupe Music.
(Photo by Jay Mather)