Tickets starting at $11 for an early Mozart triumph and a world premiere based on a Tennessee Williams masterpiece

Opera Philadelphia’s 2026-2027 Season launches in September with the Philadelphia premiere of Mitridate, re di Ponto, an early career triumph for composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who completed the opera when he was just 14 years old. It is followed in October with the first opera by Courtney Bryan, an Opera Philadelphia Composer in Residence from 2022-2024, who brings new life to Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer, about a family secret and a mother’s desperate attempt to silence the truth. The opera comes to Opera Philadelphia directly from its world premiere performances at Bard SummerScape, recently praised by the New York Times for its innovative production “piling storytelling onto storytelling in a way that only opera, a synthesis of all art forms, can.”

Pick Your Price tickets for both operas, starting at $11, go on sale on Tuesday, August 4, beginning at 10 am ET at operaphila.org or by calling 215.732.8400. Pick Your Price tickets for the 2027 operas (Let ‘Em Eat Cake, Aida, and Sitcom) go on sale on Monday, November 23, at 10 am. Opera Pass holders can purchase Pick Your Price tickets for the entire season now. Standard price tickets are available as well.

Mitridate, re di Ponto
Company Premiere
New Production
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi
September 9, 10, 13, 2026
Academy of Music
Performed in Italian with English supertitles
Approximately 3 hours including one intermission

Mitridate, re di Ponto – an early opera seria triumph for composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, completed when he was just 14 years old – brings a dramatic story with virtuosic arias and duets, into an onstage world that underscores the timeless nature of absolute power, fraught family dynamics, and political gamesmanship.

Celebrated tenor Lawrence Brownlee, whose past decade with Opera Philadelphia has included iconic performances in the world premiere of Daniel Schnyder and Bridgette Wimberly’s opera Charlie Parker’s Yardbird (2015) and the company premiere of Rossini’s Otello (2022), stars in the title role. General Director Anthony Roth Costanzo portrays his eldest son, Farnace, with soprano Lauren Snouffer as Aspasia, the woman pledged to the king but loved by both of his sons. This marks an Academy of Music stage reunion for Costanzo and Snouffer, who headlined the critically acclaimed company premiere of George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s Written on Skin in 2018.

“I’m thrilled to return to Opera Philadelphia to take on the title role of Mitridate for the second time,” Brownlee said. “It’s a remarkable work, and I’m excited to rediscover it with such a phenomenal cast. This production is especially meaningful to me because it reflects the unique partnership I share with the company. As a member of the Board of Directors, I have the privilege of performing alongside our General Director, Anthony Roth Costanzo, under the leadership of our Music Director, my dear friend and colleague Corrado Rovaris. Collaborations like this embody the spirit of Opera Philadelphia and make the experience all the more special.”

With a libretto by Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi, adapted from Jean Racine’s play, Mitridate delves into ambition, loyalty, betrayal, and conflict—timeless dimensions of human experience that remain as resonant today as at its 1770 premiere. Composed when Mozart was just 14, the opera reveals an extraordinary command of dramatic pacing, combining youthful energy with striking elegance and emotional depth. Celebrated in its initial run and recognized as the composer’s first major operatic achievement, Mitridate later fell into obscurity before being rediscovered and revived in the 20th century.

Soprano Meredith Wohlgemuth makes her company debut as Sifare, Mitridate’s other son, with soprano Nola Richardson debuting as Ismene and mezzo-soprano Sarah Coit debuting as Arbate. Tenor Minghao Liu, who debuted as Belfiore in Il viaggio a Reims in 2025, returns in the role of Marzio.

Emma Griffin, the acclaimed theater and opera director and managing artistic director of Mannes Opera at the New School’s College of Performing Arts, makes her Opera Philadelphia debut directing the production. Judy & Peter Leone Music Director Corrado Rovaris leads the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra.

Suddenly Last Summer
Philadelphia Premiere
Music by Courtney Bryan
Libretto by Gideon Lester and Daniel Fish, based on the play by Tennessee Williams
October 22, 23, 25, 2026
Forrest Theatre
Performed in English with English supertitles
Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission
A co-commission and co-production with Fisher Center LAB
Presented by special arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee

The feverish Tennessee Williams-based Suddenly Last Summer brings 2023 MacArthur Fellow and “pianist and composer of panoramic interests” (The New York Times) Courtney Bryan to Opera Philadelphia for her first-ever opera, bringing radiant new life to Williams’s study of a confrontation between truth and power.

Bryan began developing Suddenly Last Summer during her tenure as an Opera Philadelphia Composer in Residence from 2022 to 2024. “The first 20th-century opera I saw, while still in high school, was André Previn and Philip Littell’s setting of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and it left a lasting impression, seeing how opera with contemporary language could complement the storytelling of such a powerful play,” Bryan said. “I am drawn to the complex worlds that Williams creates and look forward to writing music that draws upon the beauty and terror in this Southern Gothic story. The setting of the play in my city of New Orleans and the various themes of wealth and power, of sexuality and vulnerability, and the blurring of reality and fiction and of sanity and insanity are compelling to me.”

Gideon Lester and Tony-winning director Daniel Fish (lauded for his creative Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, which won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival) have teamed up to pen its libretto, with Fish directing. Nathan Koci, who was music director on Fish’s Oklahoma! and most recently served as music director for the first national tour of Anäis Mitchell’s Tony Award-winning folk musical Hadestown, makes his Opera Philadelphia debut as conductor and music supervisor.  Adapted from Williams’ one-act Southern Gothic drama set in New Orleans (Bryan’s hometown), the opera tells the story of the wealthy Venable family and a young woman’s struggle to speak (or in this case sing) truth to power.

The poet Sebastian Venable died mysteriously in Spain last summer. His cousin Catharine was with him and has since returned to New Orleans, where she obsessively recounts the story of his death. Now, Sebastian’s mother is attempting to bribe a doctor to lobotomize her niece and cut the story from her memory forever. The cast is led by Mikaela Bennett as Catharine Holly, the opera’s lone singing role, with additional casting to be announced.

Bryan is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and currently serves as composer-in-residence with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. Recent works include DREAMING (Freedom Sounds), performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble at New York’s Kaufman Music Center; Visual Rhythms, a new art-inspired orchestral piece for Jacksonville Symphony; House of Pianos, which Bryan premiered in 2023 with the LA Phil New Music Group (chamber ensemble version) and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (full orchestra version); and Gathering Song (libretto by Tazewell Thompson), composed for bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green and the New York Philharmonic.

Fish is a New York-based director who makes work across the boundaries of theater, film, and opera. He draws on a broad range of forms and subject matter, including plays, film scripts, contemporary fiction, essays, and found audio. His acclaimed 2019 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! transferred to Broadway from St. Ann’s Warehouse, following its premiere at the Fisher Center at Bard, and won the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival. The production then transferred to London’s West End, where it won the Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival. Lester is Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Fisher Center at Bard. As a writer for the stage, his translations include Moliere’s Dom Juan, The Island of Slaves and The Dispute by Marivaux, Büchner’s Woyzeck, and Brecht’s Mother Courage, and his adaptations include Kafka’s Amerika, Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, and Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita.

Suddenly Last Summer was co-commissioned by Fisher Center LAB and Opera Philadelphia and received its world premiere at the Fisher Center at Bard in June 2026. Fisher Center LAB is funded by the Lucille Lortel Foundation and the Fisher Center’s Artistic Innovation Fund, with lead support from Rebecca Gold Milikowsky and additional funding from The William and Lia G. Poorvu Family Foundation. Major development support for Suddenly Last Summer has been received from the Fisher Center’s Hope Commissions Fund, generously endowed by the Civis Foundation and Bard College. Additional commissioning support was provided by the Howard & Sarah D. Solomon Foundation. The commissioning of Courtney Bryan received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Suddenly Last Summer was developed with residency support from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).