Question: Esther was set to a libretto by the poet who lived in what city?
Context: Esther is an American opera in 3 acts composed by Hugo Weisgall, with a libretto by Charles Kondek.  "Esther" was premiered by the New York City Opera in October 1993.  The opera is about Esther’s struggle as she becomes the queen of Persia, and her heroic triumph over the evil Prime Minister Haman and his plot of exterminating the Jews. Esther (HWV 50) is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel.  It is generally acknowledged to be the first English oratorio.  Handel set a libretto after the Old Testament drama by Jean Racine.  The work was originally composed in 1718, but was heavily revised into a full oratorio in 1732. Charles-Jean Grandmougin (17 January 1850 – 28 April 1930) was a French poet and playwright.  He lived in Paris.  Two of his poems appeared in the third and final volume of "Le Parnasse contemporain" (1876).  His poetry has been set as songs by composers including Fauré, Chaminade, Pierné and Bizet.  He was more well known as a librettist and translator for operas and oratorios.  He wrote the libretto for César Franck's opera Hulda, set in 11th-century Norway, and based on the play "Lame Hulda" (1858) by Norwegian writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson.  He also wrote the libretto for "La Vierge", an oratorio by Jules Massenet. James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. Federico Romero Saráchaga (11 November 1886 – 30 June 1976) was a Spanish poet and essayist.  He is particularly known as a writer of libretti, primarily for zarzuelas. Although he was born in Oviedo and lived at times in both Zaragoza and Madrid, he considered himself a son of Spain's La Mancha region, where his family had lived from the early 20th century in the small town of La Solana (Ciudad Real).  The zarzuela "La rosa del azafrán", composed by Jacinto Guerrero to a libretto by Romero, is considered emblematic of the region. Farnace is an 18th-century Italian opera in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček.  It was composed to a libretto by the Italian poet Antonio Maria Lucchini that is best known from a setting by Antonio Vivaldi first produced at the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice for the carnival operatic season of 1727.  For a performance in the 1760s, it would only be expected that a libretto of such age would be abbreviated and altered to suit contemporary operatic taste; this libretto was unusually old, even older than all but one of the librettos by Metastasio that continued by be set in the 1760s.  The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1767 performance of Mysliveček's opera are not attributable.  Indeed, they are quite extensive; not a single one of Lucchini's original aria texts was re-set by Mysliveček. Esther Hallam Meynell (née Moorhouse) (1878 in Leeds – 4 February 1955 in Brighton, Sussex), was an English author.  She is best known for her "The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach", a fictional autobiography of Anna Magdalena Bach, the wife of composer Johann Sebastian Bach, and "Nelson’s Lady Hamilton", a book about the life of Emma, Lady Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson.  There are also many books by her about Sussex, where she lived.  On the other hand, her "Time's Door" belongs to the genre of science fiction due to its theme of time travel.  Meynell was the niece by marriage of the poet and suffragette Alice Meynell. Esther Nirina, née Esther Ranirinaharitafika (1932–2004), was a Malagasy poet.  Born in 1932 in Madagascar, she lived in Orleans, France from 1953 to 1983, working as a librarian, before returning to Madagascar and establishing herself as a poet.  During her career, Nirina was a member of the Académie Malagache, and head of the Society of the Writers of the Indian Ocean (SEROI).  Her volume of poetry "Simple voyelle" was awarded the ADELF Grand Prix Littérature de Madagascar. L'Olimpiade is an 18th-century Italian opera in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček.  It was composed to a libretto by the Italian poet Metastasio that was first performed in 1733.  For a performance in the 1770s, it would only be expected that a libretto of such age would be abbreviated and altered to suit contemporary operatic taste; some of the original aria texts would be omitted or substituted, and the remaining aria texts would be set more expansively.  In this case, only 14 of the original 18 aria texts of Metastasio were newly set to music.  The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1778 performance of Mysliveček's opera are not attributable. Esther is a 1956 English-language opera by Jan Meyerowitz to a libretto by Langston Hughes based on the biblical story in the Book of Esther.  The opera was premiered at the Festival of Contemporary Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Answer: Joplin, Missouri