Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage nationwide. The story behind it will now become an opera.

A love story this epic needs to be told in an epic way.

Thus, the story of Mildred and Richard Loving, a Virginia couple whose case overturned states’ laws banning interracial marriage, will be told through a major opera, the Virginia Opera announced May 16.

The opera and the Richmond Symphony have commissioned “Loving v. Virginia,” which will premiere in spring 2025, marking the opera’s 50th anniversary. A work of this magnitude will take three years of workshopping the lyrics and music, set design, costumes and rehearsals, said Amanda Ely, the opera’s marketing director, in a news conference at Norfolk’s Harrison Opera House.

It is the first commissioned work by the opera in more than a decade, said artistic director Adam Turner

A few years ago, the opera started brainstorming about creating something spectacular for the 50th, he said. It wanted a piece connected to Virginia history like the one it and the symphony commissioned for 2011, “Rappahannock County,” a Civil War-themed song cycle.

Then someone remembered the Lovings.

Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving grew up in Central Point, a small community in Caroline County outside Richmond. He was white. She identified as Black and Native American and, later in life, only as Native American.

In the 1950s, several states had laws that made it illegal for whites and Blacks to marry; Virginia was more stringent — it prohibited whites from marrying anyone who wasn’t white.

So in June 1958, Jeter and Loving drove to Washington, D.C., to marry. They returned to Caroline County and in July were arrested. They pleaded guilty, their one-year jail sentences suspended on condition that they leave the state and not return for 25 years. They moved to D.C., and when they visited Virginia they were supposed to do so separately. But in 1963, with their growing family, they traveled together and were arrested.

This time they contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit against the state. Virginia fought it to the U.S. Supreme Court — which ruled in 1967, nine years after the Lovings married, that the state’s law was unconstitutional.

Virginia was one of 16 states that still had anti-miscegenation laws. The court’s action got rid of them all.

Richard Loving died eight years later in a car accident. Mildred Loving died in 2008.

June 12, the anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling, is now recognized nationally as Loving Day.

Turner said that in addition to telling a Virginia story, they wanted a Virginian to write the story. They called Damien Geter, a composer who lives in Portland, Oregon, but grew up in Petersburg, about an hour from where the Lovings lived. (He also received his bachelor’s degree from Old Dominion University.)

Geter, in a recorded statement played at the news conference, said he couldn’t accept the invitation quickly enough.

As the artistic adviser for Resonance Ensemble and the Portland Opera, Geter is in such demand that he has accepted commissions for works through 2027. His work, he said, centers on social issues and civil rights, and for years he has felt impelled to do a piece about the Lovings.

“Years ago, when I thought of creating a story, this one had come across my mind,” he said in the video. Now, he said, “I think of this every. Single. Day.”

The story is important to several of the organizers, too. Turner said the Loving case was precedent for Obergefell v. Hodges, which in 2015 legalized marriage for same-sex couples. It allowed him to marry his husband, Nathan Laube, in 2020.

When Peggy Kriha Dye — general director and CEO of Virginia Opera — spoke, she held up her left hand and flashed her engagement ring:

“We are able to take our wedding vows in Virginia because of this case.”

Librettist Jessica Murphy Moo also made remarks, recorded in her office at the University of Portland.

“This means a great deal to me,” she said. “This made my marriage possible; it made my family possible. I owe so much to Richard and Mildred Loving.”

Also announced were plans for a Commissioning Club that will allow people to financially support the making of the opera and receive access to workshops, creative team and cast, and other benefits. Tiers of support range from $15,000 to $45,000.

In 2025, “Loving v. Virginia” will be performed at the Harrison Opera House, Dominion Energy Center in Richmond and the Center for the Arts at George Mason University in Fairfax.

Denise M. Watson, 757-446-2504, denise.watson@pilotonline.com