Flame and Shadow: The Passion and Pain of Sara Teasdale

Flame and Shadow: The Passion and Pain of Sara Teasdale is a new chamber opera by composer Nika Leoni and librettist Kathryn Hedgpeth, based on the life of the renowned early 20th-century American poet and the first female Pulitzer Prize winner. The production brings together the hauntingly beautiful poetry and turbulent life of Sara Teasdale, illuminating a powerful-yet-overlooked voice from St. Louis’s cultural history. Through an innovative blend of dual timelines, multimedia projection, and poetic storytelling, this work reimagines opera as an immersive journey connecting past and present. This production, which is a working preview of the opera still in progress, invites audiences to rediscover St. Louis heritage while witnessing the evolution of an ambitious new work.