NEW YORK — Playwright Lynn Nottage described writing the opera adaption of her “Intimate Apparel” play as revisiting “an old friend” — and PBS viewers will get to experience the 2004 work which premieres Friday. The Bartlett Sher-helmed production is set in Lower Manhattan in 1905 and tells the story of a lonely Black seamstress who makes her living sewing undergarments. She embarks on a letter-writing relationship with a mysterious man. With music by composer Ricky Ian Gordon, the opera’s libretto was written by Nottage, who described the process as stretching a different muscle. “I was just …
