Fellow Travelers

Based on Thomas Mallon’s best-selling novel, Fellow Travelers takes place in 1950s Washington, D.C., and follows Timothy Laughlin, a recent college graduate and devout Catholic eager to join the crusade against Communism. A chance encounter with a handsome State Department official, Hawkins Fuller, leads to Tim’s first job in D.C. and – after Fuller’s advances – his first love affair. With senator McCarthy’s investigations into ‘sexual subversives’, Tim struggles to reconcile his political convictions, his love for God, and his love for Fuller – an entanglement that ends in a stunning act of betrayal.

"[A] heart-wrenching yet musically lucid drama ... The opening act is a near-perfect example of fast-flowing musical drama ... With its smart music and sharp-edged romantic drama, Fellow Travelers seems assured of lasting appeal."
— The New York Times

A moving opera with a seductively beautiful score … A distinctive musical voice [with] a rare ear for subtle, arresting combinations and sonorities … It is all very beautiful.
– Opera Magazine (UK)

Fellow Travelers elicits tears not because it demands them, but through its understated treatment of an impossibly sad situation ... Throughout, the precision of [Spears's] operatic technique is formidable: this is music that breathes along with the story it tells ... Fellow Travelers' delicacy came through in full, and so did its emotional wallop.
— OPERA NEWS

... a ravishing musical score ... Provocative, well-sung and inventively staged, it is an important work, and the kind that invites dialogue.
— Cincinnati Enquirer

[Fellow Travelers] succeeds as a sad, tender love story of two men … Pierce’s taut, clean libretto keeps just enough of the political background to evoke the atmosphere of secrecy and paranoia of the period, but it zeroes in on the central relationship. Spears’s subtle, lyrical music is beautiful.
– The Wall Street Journal

Fellow Travelers is one of the most accomplished new American operas I have encountered in recent years. It deserves to travel widely ...
– Chicago Tribune