Three generations of a Mexican family in Queens face a moment of crisis at Panadería Gabriel — their bakery, their livelihood, and the symbol of everything they've built together. What comes next depends on who they're willing to become.

​

A Way Forward centers on Gabriel, son and father, who must navigate between his mother Helena's fierce attachment to tradition and his daughter Julia's conviction that survival requires change. Each character becomes a psychological pressure on the others — exposing assumptions about gender, legacy, and what it means to honor where you come from while facing where you need to go.

​

The opera unfolds in English and Spanish, drawing on the rhythms of Mexican-American family life to tell a story at once intimately specific and broadly human. It was commissioned by Washington National Opera as part of the American Opera Initiative and received its world premiere at the Kennedy Center on January 19, 2024.