Riding the momentum of Hillary Clinton’s presidential run and the current intensely polarized political atmosphere, Victoria Bond’s opera Mrs. President about Victoria Claflin Woodhull’s controversial 1872 presidential campaign will be performed tonight at the National Opera Center in New York City and broadcast world-wide over the internet.
Admittedly taking artistic liberties with historical facts and characters, the three main male characters in the story, although initially fascinated with Woodhull and sexually attracted to her, are determined to destroy her career, with the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher chief among them. In this story the men succeed in 1872 in that Woodhull found herself in jail on election day, but Woodhull’s dream of “a world where all are free” would eventually win out through today’s women.
The live opera performance and the live-stream broadcast begin at 8:00PM Eastern Time.