“I feel like I have been trying to innovate in musical theater for several years now, and with Complications in Sue I am challenging myself by stretching into this new form that I have long admired as an audience member,” Jackson said. “The scope and scale of opera really speak to me, so when Anthony invited me to dip my toe in the waters of the form, I saw it as an exciting opportunity to leave my comfort zone. Examining a woman’s life from birth to death began as a very collaborative storytelling idea that I am now running with, and I look forward to embracing the next stage of collaboration with this group of amazing composers, who will bring a new scale of sound to the drama.”

Jackson’s musical, A Strange Loop, started as a personal monologue he wrote shortly after graduating from NYU, debuted in 2019, won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and premiered on Broadway in 2022. The show won Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical at the 75th Tony Awards. 

Mx Justin Vivian Bond (Viv) is an artist and performer working in the cabaret tradition weaving history, cultural critique, and an ethic of care into performances and artworks animated by wit, whimsy, and calls to action. Bond uses cabaret to explore the political and cultural ethos of the moment and tie it back to history to address contemporary challenges, particularly those facing queer communities. Bond’s decades-long journey across the landscape of gender has both informed their artistic practices and played a significant role in ongoing conversations around gender identity and LGBTQ+ rights. In Only an Octave Apart (2022), Bond collaborated with Anthony Roth Costanzo to create an evening-length performance combining elements of opera, avant-garde performance, and campy stage review. They have appeared on stage (Broadway and Off-Broadway, London’s West End), screen (Shortbus, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Sunset Stories), television (High Maintenance, Difficult People, The Get Down), nightclub stages (most notably a decades-long residency at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater in New York), and in concert halls worldwide (Carnegie Hall, The Sydney Opera House). Their memoir Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels (Feminist Press) won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction.

“I’m beyond thrilled to be playing the titular role in this brilliant new opera, Complications in Sue,” Bond said. “With a dream team of creative collaborators focused on thinking, singing, dressing, lighting, and designing sets around ME, ME, ME -uh, Sue that is- and Michael R. Jackson’s libretto delivering a lifetime supply of delirious complications, I am simply in heaven.”

Bond’s costumes are designed by their longtime collaborator Jonathan Anderson, whose JW Anderson line has featured Bond as a muse, model, and spokesperson. One of the industry’s most feted British designers, Anderson is internationally heralded as a significantly original talent. Anderson is the creative director of women’s, men’s and haute couture collections at Dior and founder at JW Anderson. 

Four opera singers play different characters in Sue’s life through the decades. Soprano Kiera Duffy, who starred in the Opera Philadelphia world premieres of Breaking the Waves in 2016 and 10 Days in a Madhouse in 2023, returns in the roles of Mrs. Claus, Co-Ed 1, Algorithm 1, Child Self, and Death. Mezzo-soprano Rehanna Thelwell, who debuted in the 2024 American premiere of The Listeners, stars as Newscaster, Algorithm 2, Octogenarian, and Death. Scottish tenor Nicky Spence, winner of the BBC Musician Magazine Personality of the Year in 2022, makes his company debut as Co-Ed 2, Algorithm 3, Neighbor, and Death. Bass-baritone Nicholas Newton, who debuted with Opera Philadelphia as Leporello in 2025’s Don Giovanni, portrays Santa Claus, Roger, Octogenarian, and Death.

Before its world premiere, Opera Philadelphia will preview Complications in Sue at Works & Process at the Guggenheim in New York City. Join Anthony Roth Costanzo, Michael R. Jackson, and co-directors Zack Winokur and Raja Feather Kelly, and hear excerpts from the opera, on Friday, January 16, at 7:00 p.m.

About the Composers of Complications in Sue

The Philadelphia-born, Grammy-nominated Missy Mazzoli opened the company’s 2024-2025 Season with her newest opera The Listeners, and her 2016 world premiere, Breaking the Waves, was a phenomenon that won the inaugural Best New Opera Award from the Music Critics Association of North America and has been performed all over the world since its Philadelphia debut. Like Mazzoli, Rene Orth is a former Opera Philadelphia Composer in Residence. The company presented the “triumphant world premiere” (Wall Street Journal) of Orth’s 10 Day in a Madhouse to open its 2023-2024 Season. Nico Muhly is a composer who writes orchestral music, works for the stage, chamber music and sacred music. He’s twice been commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera: Two Boys (2011) and Marnie (2018). Praised as “one of the most exciting opera composers in the country” (The Washington Post), Kamala Sankaram moves freely between the worlds of experimental music and contemporary opera. She is known for her work pushing the boundaries of the operatic form.

Nathalie Joachim is a Grammy-nominated performer and composer. The Haitian American artist is hailed for being “a fresh and invigorating cross-cultural voice” (The Nation). Her creative practice centers an authentic commitment to storytelling and human connectivity while advocating for social change and cultural awareness, gaining her the reputation of being “powerful and unpretentious” (The New York Times). She is Assistant Professor of Composition at Princeton University. Errollyn Wallen is a multi-award-winning Belize-born British composer and performer. Her prolific output includes 22 operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber, and vocal works which are performed and broadcast throughout the world. She was the first Black woman to have a work featured in the BBC Proms and the first woman to receive an Ivor Novello award for Classical Music for her body of work.

Cécile McLorin Salvant is a composer, singer, and visual artist. The late Jessye Norman described Salvant as “a unique voice supported by an intelligence and full-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings.” She received three consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for The Window, Dreams and Daggers, and For One to Love, and was nominated for the award in 2014 for her album WomanChild. 

Dan Schlosberg’s music has been performed by the Dover Quartet, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Minnesota Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, Albany Symphony, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, and Lorelei Ensemble. In 2024, Schlosberg was arranger and music director of a radical take on Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro all in one voice, in which Anthony Roth Costanzo sang every leading role. Andy Akiho is a “trailblazing” (Los Angeles Times) Pulitzer Prize finalist and seven-time Grammy-nominated composer whose bold works unravel intricate and unexpected patterns while surpassing preconceived boundaries of classical music. He is the only composer to be nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition category in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Alistair Coleman is a composer from Washington, D.C. currently based in Philadelphia, who has studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School. His recent composition activity has included a concerto for violinist Soovin Kim and cellist Zuill Bailey, a sonata for Joseph Alessi, chamber works by the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival and the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, and a vocal work commissioned by Young Concert Artists for Joseph Parrish that premiered at the Kennedy Center in February 2024.

Conducting Complications in Sue is New York City native Caren Levine, who serves as assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, has established a reputation as one of today’s most compelling young artists. She has won acclaim for her musicality, charm and sensitivity, and is known for her intense and impassioned performances. The San Francisco Chronicle described her as “a petite powerhouse, with technique to burn and unimpeachable musicianship.”

Complications in Sue 
World Premiere
Libretto by Michael R. Jackson based on an idea by Justin Vivian Bond
Music by Andy Akiho, Alistair Coleman, Nathalie Joachim, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, Rene Orth, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Kamala Sankaram, Dan Schlosberg, and Errollyn Wallen
February 4, 5, 6, and 8, 2026 
Academy of Music
Performed in English with English supertitles
Approximately 100 minutes with no intermission