Mannes Opera to Present THE SAINT OF BLEECKER STREET in 2026-27 Season
Puccini's SUOR ANGELICA and Arturo O'Farrill's new opera LUCERO round out the free, public season.
Mannes Opera has announced its 2026-27 season, featuring productions of Puccini's Suor Angelica and Gian Carlo Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street, along with a world premiere collaboration with Parsons School of Design and a workshop of Lucero, the first opera by Arturo O'Farrill.
Exploring themes of immigration, faith, belief and power, the season will span more than 400 years of music while continuing the school's focus on rarely performed works and contemporary opera. All events will be free and open to the public.
The season will open October 1 and 2 with Puccini's Suor Angelica at Our Lady of Good Counsel on East 90th Street. Conducted by Mannes Opera Music Director Cris Frisco and directed by Mikhaela Mahony, the site-specific production will feature the Mannes Chamber Orchestra, a large chorus of singers from the school's voice and opera programs and the church's pipe organ.
Puccini's only opera featuring an entirely female cast onstage, Suor Angelica is set inside a 17th-century convent and tells a story of family, deception and heartbreak within a community of cloistered nuns. Performances will be given in Italian at 7:30 p.m.
Next, Mannes will join forces with Parsons School of Design for the world premiere of Everything Urgent Quickly Is Gone, also known as The Orpheus Project, November 20 and 21 at The New School's 72 Fifth Avenue.
Directed by Colter Schoenfish and conducted by Geoffrey McDonald, the immersive production will draw on 400 years of music inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, ranging from Monteverdi to contemporary works. Audiences will move through two floors of the historic Fifth Avenue building as singers, actors, musicians and designers create a theatrical retelling of the myth. Students from Parsons will collaborate with Mannes artists to create the production's theatrical environment.
The season will continue March 12 and 13, 2027 with Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College. The production will mark the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera's first New York staging since 2011.
Written for Broadway and first produced there in 1954, The Saint of Bleecker Street is set in Little Italy and centers on a young woman who experiences the stigmata and visions of angels, her agnostic brother and a community that believes she may be a saint. The work received both the Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical.
Mannes alum Malena Dayen will direct the production, which will feature the Mannes Orchestra and a newly commissioned chamber orchestration created for Mannes students. Performances will be given in English with supertitles.
The spring will also feature two initiatives devoted to the development of contemporary opera.
On April 1, Mannes will participate in the revived VOX: American Voices Opera Lab at the Perelman Performing Arts Center. Originally established by New York City Opera in 1999, the program will return through a partnership between American Composers Orchestra, Beth Morrison Projects, MasterVoices, The Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Mannes Opera, Manhattan School of Music's Vocal Arts Division and Perelman Performing Arts Center.
With Beth Morrison serving as Creative Producer and Ted Sperling as Music Director, VOX will present four works in progress in concert, with 20- to 30-minute excerpts performed with orchestra, chorus and soloists.
Mannes will then present an orchestral workshop of Lucero on April 9 at the Theresa Lang Student Center. The work marks the operatic debut of Grammy and Latin Grammy Award-winning composer and Mannes faculty member Arturo O'Farrill, with a libretto by Luisa Muhr.
Based on a 2008 hate crime in Patchogue, New York, Lucero examines the scapegoating of immigrants through the perspectives of the victim, the accused and a celestial spirit guide. The workshop will begin at 7:30 p.m.
"When planning a season, my goal is to place our students in interesting rooms with truly extraordinary artists," Mannes Opera Managing Artistic Director Emma Griffin said in a statement. "For the 26/27 Season, we have a slate of works spanning 400 years of music."
Griffin added that the program seeks to combine the foundations of classical training with "contemporary work and innovative productions," allowing students to participate in traditional repertoire, revivals and the development of new operas.
Mannes Opera's 2026-27 season begins October 1. All events are free and open to the public.
