The workshop culminates in a free, public presentation of excerpts from the opera on Thursday, October 10.
Sarah Kirkland Snider
Composer/librettist
Photo: Shervin Lainez
CINCINNATI (September 11, 2024)—Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) have announced the next opera to be workshopped through their joint program, Opera Fusion: New Works (OF:NW): Hildegard, with music and libretto by Sarah Kirkland Snider.
Commissioned and produced by Beth Morrison Projects, Hildegard imagines three of the most pivotal events in the life of 12th-century German Benedictine nun, visionary, composer, and polymath Hildegard von Bingen. It’s the year 1147, and Hildegard begins transcribing her visions of God. She enlists the assistance of a young convalescent, Richardis von Stade, and the two women quickly develop a transformative partnership that awakens them creatively, spiritually, and—much to the internal conflict of both women—romantically. In the meantime, a dispute with Hildegard’s superior costs her and her novitiate daughters the right to make music, underscoring Hildegard's fundamental lack of agency in the male-dominated monastic culture and jeopardizing her standing within the Church. As Hildegard anxiously awaits the Pope to declare her prophet or heretic, the love between Hildegard and Richardis becomes impossible to ignore, and an unforeseen crisis threatens both their hard-won accomplishments and the intimacy, in all its complexity and secrecy, that has become their salvation.
Opera Fusion: New Works (OF:NW) is co-directed by Robin Guarino, professor of opera at CCM, and Evans Mirageas, The Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director of Cincinnati Opera, and provides composers and librettists the opportunity to collaborate with singers and creative personnel to refine their operas-in-progress. During the October workshop for Hildegard, Snider will work to further develop the work alongside director Elkhanah Pulitzer, dramaturg Annie Wang, and a cast of singers that includes Kiera Duffy as Hildegard and Mikaela Bennett as Richardis.
A public performance of excerpts from Hildegard will take place on Thursday, October 10, 2024, at 7:30 p.m. (ET) at Cincinnati Music Hall’s Wilks Studio (1241 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202). Admission to the public performance is free, though seating is limited and reservations are required. Reservations are available by calling 513-241-2742 or visiting cincinnatiopera.org.
Media Contact:
Katie Syroney
Director of Communications
ksyroney@cincinnatiopera.org / 513-768-5526