In Act One of this world premiere opera, a middle-aged African-American man named Castor is in a car with his family, driving from their hometown of Buffalo to his birthplace in the American South. There is tension in the car. Fifty years earlier, in 1966, his parents had packed up and driven north in search of a better life. During that half century the family kept hold of a plot of land down South, and its sale could now pay off Castor’s paralyzing debt. But trouble is brewing. His cousin, Patience, doesn’t want to let go of land her ancestors worked so hard for. The libretto was written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tracy K. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, and the music is by composer Gregory Spears. —Elena Clavarino