Spokane opera singer Jessica Bowers is receiving national attention for her role in a New York folk opera titled, “Billy Blythe,” which is about, of all things, the adolescence of Bill Clinton.

Bowers plays Clinton’s mother, Virginia.

This Metropolis Opera Project production is based on Clinton’s 2004 memoir, “My Life” and had a two-day developmental reading in June at the Medicine Show Theatre in New York.

Bowers was featured prominently in a July 4 article in the New Yorker magazine about the show’s rehearsals. In the story, the composer mentioned that Clinton seemed to be attracted to women who reminded him of his mother.

“It’s funny you would say that,” the New Yorker quoted Bowers as saying. “Someone once told me I look like Monica Lewinsky.”

Here's a link to the New Yorker piece.

Bowers is a Spokane native and graduate of Whitworth University and the New England Conservatory. She has appeared with the Spokane Opera.

She is continuing Spokane’s surprising record of supplying New York with opera singers -- Patrice Munsel and Thomas Hampson, to name the two most prominent.

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