From: Los Angeles, California. LA Opera: The Three Women of Jerusalem (2022, debut).
Carla Lucero, originally from Los Angeles, studied composition at CalArts with Rand Steiger, Morton Subotnick and Leonard Rosenman.
She later moved to San Francisco where Wuornos, her opera about the tragic life of Aileen Wuornos, infamously known in the media as “America’s First Female Serial Killer,” premiered at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, winning “10 Best of Stage” from Advocate and Out magazines.
Her second opera, Juana, with co-librettist Alicia Gaspar de Alba, premiered in 2019 with Opera UCLA. A Spanish language opera about 17th-century genius poet and Mexican feminist icon Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Juana received critical acclaim from the Los Angeles Times, as well as from other regional and national publications. Its New York City premiere will take place in October 2021 with dell’Arte Opera. Lucero received Opera America’s Discovery Grant for Juana in 2019.
Her third opera, The Three Women of Jerusalem, a Spanish language one-act opera commissioned by LA Opera, will premiere in March 2022, commissioned by LA Opera Connects for performances at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Lucero is writing both the music and libretto for this project.
Lucero’s fourth opera (in development), touch, is about blind/deaf American author and activist Helen Keller. The libretto is co-written by Marianna Mott Newirth. It premieres in 2024 with Opera Birmingham.
Currently in the early stages of development is an international (USA-Mexico) project , the two-woman chamber opera Luz, with creative collaborators Roxie Perkins and Ragnar Conde.
Lucero recently completed two dance commissions: in San Francisco, House of Names (Marika Brussel Dance) and in Los Angeles, Reckoning Ramona (Heidi Duckler Dance). In the summer of 2021, her song cycle El Castillo Interior will have its UK premiere during the London Festival of American Music, and excerpts from Wuornos will be performed and recorded at Carnegie Hall by pianist Anna Kislitsyna in May 2021.
Carla Lucero’s work has been performed internationally by orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists in Mexico, Chile, Cuba, Canada, Germany, Spain and Italy. She has also received awards and commissions from the The Creative Work Fund, San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council, The Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation, Bill Graham Foundation, ComuArte International, Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo, Meet the Composer, Horizons Foundation, Festival du Soleil, Festival de Música Contemporánea de Musica en Habana, Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts and Astraea, as well as the previously mentioned companies and institutions as commissioners of current projects.
Learn more at CarlaLucero.com.
