My Wings Burned Off
Operatic Monodrama for Soprano and 12 Strings
2023
Librettist Note: June Carryl
"Oluwatoyin Salau was 19 when she was raped and urdered. She was a kid: studied cosmetology, started a business in hairdressing; had modeled some; was homeless; wanted to be a lawyer. A near-regular on the local news in Tallahassee the summer of George Floyd’s murder, she was growing into a significant voice in the Black Lives Matter movement—making her death at the hands of a black man all the more brutal and galling.
I see her in the faces of every other Black woman I know: the erasure, the exhaustion, the resignation, the rage. She is told to be strong; and then that she is monstrous because of her strength; her anger is preternatural and unwomanly all at once; she is exotic and hypersexualized on the one-hand, unloved, unwanted and invisible on the other. Always running. She said, once, “I will die being black.” Blackness was her lot; she understood how very much it defined her in America’s eyes. But it was also her superpower. It gave her a voice. It gave her courage. It made her someone.
I wanted to tell her story because it is my story; I just didn’t die from it. I want other black girls and women to know they matter. It meant everything to me that Jason wanted to tell her story again in this beautiful, brutal opera. Oluwatoyin Salau deserved better; she, they, we deserve better."
Composer Note: Jason Barabba
As I watched the premiere of June Carryl’s The Life and Death Of online, I was struck the power of her ability to tell a story mixed with the absolute horror of the story she was telling. Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau was let down by just about everyone who should have been there for her. She was by all accounts a remarkable, strong woman who was forthright and courageous. She deserved so much better from the world than she got.
There’s no question that Salau’s all-too-short life was entirely different from my own, and my hope is that with the creation of this work I can in some way help to assure that her story continues to be told and she is not forgotten in the morass of horrible stories we are faced with on an ongoing basis.
This is a difficult story. It’s not easy to hear, but I think it’s important that we do. The world needs more people like Oluwatoyin Salau, and we need to make sure that in the future they are allowed to thrive.
Contact Jason Barabba directly for perusal score
To discuss performance opportunities, please contact me at jason@jasonbarabba.com.
Important Note Regarding this Work
This piece is based on the true story of and dedicated to Oluwatoyin Salau, a Black Lives Matter activist who was murdered in June 2020. That her murderer was a Black man makes it hurt all the more. It is vital to understand that the intention of this story is not to vilify Black men or to add to the exploitation of Black pain. It is to tell this young woman’s story because it happened.
While the original production of the play featured Black women of many and varied hues and perspectives, it is requested that the singer be dark skinned and have natural hair. This is true not only to who Oluwatoyin Salau was, but also in order to encapsulate a very particular experience. She was particular and singular. Black women are not a monolith, nor are Black people. This is this young woman’s story. It is understood that the singer will likely be noticeably older than Toyin Salau was at her death.
The creators of this work will neither allow nor approve the use of anyone other than a Black soprano, nor will they permit use of makeup or any other means to make any non-Black soprano appear Black.
