Verismo PR 2026/27 Season Preview
Composer Kamala Sankaram at a workshop of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr at Minnesota Opera / credit Drew Arrieta
Verismo Communications
Classical Music Preview
2026/27 Season
WORLD PREMIERE: THE MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR
Kamala Sankaram • Minita Gandhi • Mary Birnbaum
COMMISSIONS & PREMIERES
Jake Heggie • Music of Remembrance
HIGH-PROFILE DEBUTS
Ryan McKinny • Miles Mykkanen • Lidiya Yankovskaya
NATIONAL RECITAL TOUR
Jamie Barton
Librettist Gene Scheer and composer Jake Heggie bow after world premiere / credit Karen Almond
SUMMER 2026
July 16–18 • Highland Park, IL
Tenor MILES MYKKANEN brings his “bright excitement and captivating expressiveness” (The New York Times) to his first performances as Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail at Ravinia Festival. He joins Kathryn Lewek, Morris Robinson, and Broadway’s Jefferson Mays, with James Conlon on the podium.
July 18 • Napa, CA
Commissioned for Festival Napa Valley's 20th anniversary season, The Judgment of Paris is a world premiere one-act opera by composer JAKE HEGGIE and librettist GENE SCHEER, inspired by the legendary 1976 blind tasting that transformed the world of wine. The all-star cast includes Danielle de Niese, Quinn Kelsey, Nicholas Phan, Simone McIntosh, and Brenda Rae, under the baton of Kent Nagano and directed by Jean-Romain Vesperini.
August 7 • Vienna, VA
Drawing on his wide-ranging artistic experiences in his growing work as a stage director, bass-baritone RYAN MCKINNY directs a production of Tosca at Wolf Trap Opera with co-director Tonya McKinny. The duo’s 2025 production at Wolf Trap drew praise from the Wall Street Journal for its “uncanny depth and dimension” and “the McKinny treatment, which employs a larger global context not just as a metaphor but as a staging strategy.”
Ryan McKinny in Bluebeard’s Castle at Boston Lyric Opera / credit Liza Voll
FALL 2026
September 11 – November 21 • Huntsville, AL; Cincinnati, OH; Los Angeles, CA; Seattle, WA
Mezzo-soprano JAMIE BARTON embarks on a solo recital tour across the United States with longtime collaborator, pianist Kathleen Kelly. Known for her ability to “mine the boundary between sound and silence like a tireless explorer” (San Francisco Chronicle), Barton travels to Huntsville Chamber Music Guild, Matinée Musicale Cincinnati, LA Opera, and Seattle Opera.
September 20 – November 28 • Cardiff, Llandudno, Southampton, Oxford, Plymouth, United Kingdom
Conductor LIDIYA YANKOVSKAYA makes her Welsh National Opera debut leading a double bill of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Bartók masterwork Bluebeard’s Castle. A recent review in The Times praised her conducting of the Bartók at English National Opera, saying “Yankovskaya draws out a lyrical, polished reading of the score – compelling in its dreamlike, crepuscular flow.”
October 19 – November 14 • New York, NY
Following his highly acclaimed run as De Rocher in the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, bass-baritone RYAN MCKINNY returns to the Met for the world premiere of Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Lincoln in the Bardo. He joins a star-studded cast including Peter Mattei, Christine Goerke, Stephanie Blythe, and Anthony Roth Costanzo, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium.
October 31 – November 8 • Minneapolis, MN
Opera has long adapted literature and legend – now, for the first time, a graphic novel becomes grand opera. With The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, composer KAMALA SANKARAM, librettist MINITA GANDHI, and director MARY BIRNBAUM transform the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel by Ram V and Filipe Andrade into a major new work. Opening Minnesota Opera’s 2026-27 season, the opera follows the goddess of Death after she is cast down to live as a mortal in contemporary Mumbai.
November 1 • Seattle, WA
MUSIC OF REMEMBRANCE opens their season with Journeys, exploring multicultural stories of freedom, courage, and perseverance. Anchoring the program are compelling works by Sahba Aminikia, George Walker, and Steve Reich that trace stories of forced migration and resilience, from refugees crossing stormy seas to the dark legacy of slavery and the Holocaust.
Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at English National Opera / credit Manuel Harlan
WINTER 2026 – 2027
December 13 – January 23 • London, United Kingdom
Tenor MILES MYKKANEN returns to London’s Royal Ballet & Opera as Prince Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, following his debut in the role at LA Opera, which was “sung with poignant lyricism and vibrant tone” (San Francisco Classical Voice). David McVicar’s classic production is conducted by Dalia Stasevska.
January 25 • Seattle, WA
For the organization’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day concert Art From Ashes, MUSIC OF REMEMBRANCE has commissioned Lori Laitman’s Bonaco for longtime community partner, the Seattle Girls Choir. Laitman sets the music to text from the secret magazine created by teenage girls imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp in the 1940s.
February 19 – March 20 • Leeds, Salford, Newcastle, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Following a string of momentous 25th anniversary performances of JAKE HEGGIE’s Dead Man Walking, the Olivier Award-winning Annilese Miskimmon production travels to Opera North. Christine Rice and Johannes Moore appear as Sister Helen Prejean and Joseph De Rocher in Heggie’s “contemporary opera at its most compelling, harrowing and intensely delivered” (The Times).
Jamie Barton in The Rake’s Progress at Opéra National de Paris / credit Guergana Damianova
SPRING 2027
March 8 – April 3 • New York, NY
Bass-baritone RYAN MCKINNY returns to the Metropolitan Opera for the house premiere of Kevin Puts’ Silent Night. McKinny was most recently seen in the role at Houston Grand Opera, where Texas Classical Review said his “sturdy, resonant singing brought Horstmayer’s battlefield brusqueness to the fore,” while “displaying the officer’s compassionate side with gentler and mellower singing.”
March 14 • Seattle, WA
In Echoes of Resilience, MUSIC OF REMEMBRANCE presents two world premieres: a new work by Afghan-born composer Milad Yousufi that gives voice to the lived experiences of Afghan women; and choreography by Spectrum Dance Theater’s Donald Byrd to music written in a Nazi concentration camp by Erwin Schulhoff.
March 19–25 • Amsterdam, Netherlands
Lauded by Opera Magazine for the “emotional buoyancy of his voice” in the world premiere of We Are the Lucky Ones, tenor MILES MYKKANEN returns to Dutch National Opera as Ejlert Løvborg in the world premiere of Hedda Gabler. Composer Vasco Mendonça and director Nina Spijkers adapt Ibsen’s iconic play as part of the company’s contemporary Opera Forward Festival.
April 17–30 • Milan, Italy
Mezzo-soprano JAMIE BARTON makes a highly anticipated house debut at Teatro alla Scala as Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress, a role the Financial Times said she “owned with a rare kind of confidence, a kind of here-I-am manner of occupying space.” Riccardo Chailly conducts a new production by Kasper Holten.
April 23–25 • Brussels, Belgium
Conductor LIDIYA YANKOVSKAYA brings her “refreshingly unsentimental reading” (The Guardian) of Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs to her first performances with Belgian National Orchestra. The program also includes André Previn’s Honey and Rue, both featuring soprano Jeanine de Bique.
April 29 • Versailles, France
Following the opera’s world premiere at Festival Napa Valley, JAKE HEGGIE and GENE SCHEER’s The Judgment of Paris travels to Opéra Royal at the Château de Versailles.
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