Ms. Keong will be performing the soprano lead La Virgen del Cobre in Paola Prestini, Royce Vavrek, and Karmina Silec’s new opera The Old Man and the Sea at PROTOTYPE Festival, presented by Beth Morrison Projects.

Based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea presents a dual track of storytelling by combining the Hemingway text with original portraits of quotidian life to create a look at aging, legacy, and our relationship to oceans. The cast brings to life the seminal characters: Santiago, Manolin, and the wife, recast as La Virgen del Cobre, a goddess in Santería, the Afro-Caribbean faith, who was found floating on a wooden board off the coast of eastern Cuba in 1628.

Paola Prestini, composer
Royce Vavrek, librettist
Karmina Silec, director
Mila Henry, conductor