LEAH LAX - Librettist

An author, oral historian, and librettist, Leah Lax often combines the roles. To write her Houston Grand Opera oratorio, The Refuge by Christopher Theofanidis, Leah gathered and drew inspiration from immigrant oral histories. She had the same approach for HGO’s Overboard by Mark Buller, about survivors of the WWII sinking of the USS Houston. Then, at the request of acclaimed composer Lori Laitman, Leah based their opera Uncovered (City Lyric Opera/NY, 2023) on her memoir of the same name. To write Mass In Exile, Leah conducted one of her signature interviews, this time on the composer himself, then channeled Buller’s childhood experience of fundamentalism into the Baritone solo. Hailed by award-winning authors, Leah’s forthcoming book Not From Here: the Song of America, about truly listening to immigrants, writing an opera, and discovering the world, is soon to debut in thirty-three countries (Pegasus, March, 2024). Leah would particularly like to thank dramaturg Beth Greenberg for her excellent professional input in formulating Mass In Exile.