Minnesota Opera Postpones World Premiere of THE MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR Amid Orchestra Contract Talks

Minnesota Opera has postponed the world premiere of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, which was set to open on Halloween night, as contract negotiations with the Minnesota Opera Orchestra remain unresolved. The new opera is now not expected to reach the stage until late 2027 or early 2028, MPR News reports.

Talks between the company and its orchestra, centered on cost-of-living wage increases, have stretched on for five months. Earlier this month, the musicians voted to authorize a strike. The players are members of the American Federation of Musicians, Twin Cities Local 30-73.

Ryan Taylor, the company’s president and general director, told MPR News that the two sides are not yet close to a deal, and that leadership did not want to risk reaching opening night only to have key members of the team decline to perform. Moving the production to a later date, he said, would let the company present it with certainty.

According to Taylor, the union turned down a temporary no-strike, no-lockout agreement under which the orchestra would have received retroactive raises once a new contract was finalized. He argued the arrangement would have allowed the premiere, which involves roughly 214 other artists, to go forward while negotiations continued.

Cellist Rebecca Arons, who chairs the musicians’ negotiating committee, countered that the proposal made little sense given that management has put no wage increases on the table. She also told MPR News that a central concern is the company treating the orchestra as musicians hired service by service rather than as an institution in its own right, and said the trust and shared artistic vision built over the orchestra’s 63-year history has worn away.

The orchestra will present a free concert of opera arias at 7 p.m. on Sunday at the University of Minnesota’s Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis.

Taylor said Minnesota Opera will pay all artists, orchestra included, for their work this season as originally contracted. Ticketholders may hold their tickets for the rescheduled run, exchange them for another performance this season, or request a refund. The company’s next production, My Name Is Florence, is scheduled for January 8 and 9.

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr was announced as the opener of Minnesota Opera’s 2026-27 season earlier this year. Composed by Kamala Sankaram with a libretto by Minita Gandhi, the opera emerged from the company’s New Works Initiative and marks the first opera by two women of South Asian descent produced by an American Opera Company. It adapts the BOOM! Studios graphic novel by Ram V. and Filipe Andrade, following the goddess of Death as she is cast down to Earth to live as a mortal. The production was set to star soprano Leela Subramaniam as Laila Starr, tenor Omar Najmi as Darius, and baritone Efraín Solís as Pranah, with Christopher Franklin conducting and Mary Birnbaum directing. Performances had been planned at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul.