David Cote

Artist Statement

In my plays and opera libretti I’ve written about issues that are deeply personal as well as subjects that emerge from research. So it’s a mix: adoption, body dysmorphia, grief and survivor guilt, glacier loss due to climate change, wrongful conviction, and music therapy. Heavy topics, but I’m drawn to humor and the line between offensive and liberating. You might say the operas are expressions of global and moral responsibility, and the plays are where I exorcise demons. Still, nothing’s fixed.

Soprano Lucy Shelton as Lili in Lucidity, a new opera which will premiere at On Site Opera in New York City, then travel to Seattle Opera. Composed by Laura Kaminsky (As One), the opera will also be produced in Houston and Ithaca, NY in 2025. Lucidity explores the mysterious connection between music and memory through a music-therapy trial.

Bio

David Cote is a playwright, opera librettist, and critic based in New York City. Plays include The Müch, Saint Joe, and Otherland (O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference finalist). Recent opera: Lucidity by On Site Opera in NYC, Northwest premiere at Seattle Opera; Blind Injustice at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater; and Meltdown, a solo opera about climate change at National Sawdust. Previous operas include Blind Injustice at Cincinnati Opera and Peak Performances; Three Way at Nashville Opera and BAM; and The Scarlet Ibis at Prototype festival. David wrote the text for Nkeiru Okoye’s Black Lives Matter monodrama, Invitation to a Die-In. Other vocal pieces: Cocoa Cantata (a sequel to Bach’s Coffee Cantata) and online dating song cycles In Real Life, both with Robert Paterson. Recordings: Blind Injustice (NAXOS), Three Way (American Modern Recordings) and In Real Life (AMR). As a journalist, David’s TV and theater writing appears in The A.V. Club, Observer, 4 Columns, American Theatre and elsewhere. He was the longest serving theater editor and chief drama critic of Time Out New York. He’s the author of companion books about the Broadway hits Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Wicked, Jersey Boys and Spring Awakening.

https://davidcote.com/