Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider is set to premiere her first opera, “Hildegard,” in LA and New York.

The work, which she also wrote the libretto for, will be presented in world premieres by Los Angeles Opera on Nov. 5-9, 2025 and PROTOTYPE Festival in New York on Jan. 9-17, 2026, with subsequent performances at the Aspen Music Festival and School in the Summer 2026.

“Hildegard” was co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival and School and is a work of operatic historical fiction about twelfth-century German Benedictine abbess/polymath St. Hildegard von Bingen. Set in 1147, the opera follows Hildegard as she receives visions from God.

In a statement Snider says, “I have chronic migraine, and first learned about Hildegard von Bingen through reading Oliver Sacks’s book Migraine, in which Sacks popularized a theory suggesting that Hildegard’s visions were a result of migraine. I immediately wanted to know more. Thus began a twenty-five-year fascination with Hildegard – her music, visions, and astonishing story. I was awestruck by her triumph over self-doubt, illness, and the otherwise impenetrable social barriers of her time to become the first woman in the history of the Catholic Church to speak and write in the name of God. I wanted to share this story while exploring aspects of her philosophy and the more mysterious realm of her visions, and I thought it would be interesting to do this through the prism of her relationship with fellow nun Richardis von Stade, with whom she shared an impassioned yet complicated love.”

Beth Morrison is the creative producer of “Hildegard” and Beth Morrison Projects is the producer. The opera is set to be directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer with music director Gabriel Crouch. Nola Richardson (Hildegard von Bingen), Mikaela Bennett (Richardis von Stade), Raha Mirzadegan (Angel), Blythe Gaissert (Margravine von Stade), Roy Hage (Volmar), Patrick Bessenbacher (Mechthild), David Adam Moore (Abbot Cuno), and Paul Chwe MinChul An (Otto) will star in the opera.

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