The Irish National Opera is set to present the U.K. premiere of Brian Irvine and Netia Jones’ “Least Like the Other” on Jan. 15-19, 2023.

The opera, which will take place at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre, explores the tragedy of Rosemary Kennedy, the sister of U.S. President J.F. Kennedy. She was starved of oxygen at birth and experienced learning disabilities that would affect her adolescence and beyond. Her father’s reaction to her behavior was to lock her up and then force her to have a lobotomy at 23. She was then institutionalized from 1941 until she died in 2005; the lobotomy was kept secret from her siblings and family over decades.

Netia Jones will direct the opera with Fergus Sheil conducting. The opera will star singer Amy Ní Fherraigh and actors Ronan Leahy and Stephanie Dufresne.

“Rosemary Kennedy’s story has a powerful relevance today,” Sheil said in an official press statement. “Her parents created an image of the family as the ideal model of ambition and achievement in modern America. They were never going to tolerate any blemishes to this picture-perfect world. Brian Irvine and Netia Jones have created a profoundly challenging, quite extraordinary work of experimental musical theatre that is based on found text, including material from newspaper reports, biographies, memoirs, letters, intelligence tests and other sources that have only recently surfaced. Brian’s score and Netia’s staging take us into a world of heightened reality. Of course it’s challenging, but the piece is not bleak – there are moments of humor and lightness there, too.”

The Irish National Opera presented the work in 2019, with OperaWire’s Alan Nielsen stating that “The opera is a testament to the bravery and innovative approach of Irish National Opera. The company does not stick to the tried and tested, but instead embraces opera in all its forms… Certainly, INO makes room for them, but it is clearly prepared to move beyond this narrow range.”