Nothing Between You and the Voice – Dane Suarez

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A field guide to OperaDelaware’s Chamber Series

The best moments in the OperaDelaware Studios are the ones right after the first big phrase, when somebody in the front row turns to their friend in awe after experiencing opera up close: with no proscenium.

As a performer, I know that look from the stage. It means the sound did not arrive so much as go through them. Voices at that proximity move the air in the room, and you can feel it in the floor and in your chest and it changes you. The phrase ends, the room rings, and nobody moves. This is the intimacy of the Chamber Series.

The Grand gives you grandeur, and we all love a mainstage night. The Studios give you proximity, and proximity is a thrill of an entirely different order.

Here is what OperaDelaware has planned for this season (arguably our most adventurous slate we have put in that room.) A Spanish zarzuela that almost nobody in this country stages. Puccini's very first opera, a ghost story he wrote at twenty-five. A world premiere performance written for one of our company artists. Janáček. Three composers retelling the story of Orpheus across a single evening. And an intimate look at Mozart, eight days before the same opera opens at The Grand.

Most clock in at sixty minutes, which is opera at full concentration: the arias, the confrontations, and all the drama. Five happen in the Studios. One is a site-specific performance in December inside the Sunday Breakfast Mission.

One more thing before the deep-dive: our Company Artists are prominently featured across the chamber series. Gerard Moon sings in five of the six. Emily Margevich sings in four and Dane Suarez sings in three. Half the pleasure of a season like this is watching the same handful of people turn into six different sets of characters.

English supertitles (captions ON, please!) for everything.

Here is the 26/27 Chamber Series season.

Don Giovanni Portraits

October 8 at 7:30 PM and October 10 at 2:00 PM, OperaDelaware Studios

Mozart and Da Ponte, arranged for chamber forces by Husan Chun-Novak, who also plays and conducts. Sung in Italian with English supertitles.

The concept is Don Giovanni stripped to its essentials: no grand sets, no distance between you and the voices telling the story. Live performance woven together with storytelling and historical background, which means you do not need to have done homework to follow it.

The cast for this one is different than what you'll see on the mainstage! Gerard Moon as Giovanni, Esther Tonea as Donna Anna, Caitlin Crabill as Donna Elvira, Norman Shankle as Don Ottavio, Timothy Mix as Leporello, Amanda Sheriff as Zerlina, and Steven M. Warnock as Masetto.

And the scheduling is deliberate. This runs eight days before our mainstage Don Giovanni opens at The Grand on October 16. See the Portraits first, then see the full canvas. If you have ever wanted to understand what a director and a conductor actually do to a score, watching the same opera twice in nine days at two scales is the clearest lesson available.

Produced with support from Brad Clark and in collaboration with Opera Baltimore and the Mohican Hills Concert Series.

Fernanda

November 13 at 7:30 PM and November 15 at 2:00 PM, OperaDelaware Studios

OperaDelaware is staging our first Spanish-language zarzuela. Zarzuela is Spanish music theater with its own tradition, its own repertoire, and its own devoted audience. In Spain it fills houses. In the United States it is performed so rarely that most opera regulars have never seen one!

Luisa Fernanda, by Federico Moreno Torroba, is frequently described as the last great romantic zarzuela. Jorge Parodi has adapted it into a one-hour chamber version. Spain, 1868. Revolution in the streets. An innkeeper's daughter caught between two men who want very different futures. Love, loyalty, revolution.

Sung in Spanish with English supertitles. Gina Perregrino sings Luisa Fernanda, Gerard Moon sings Vidal, Emily Margevich sings Carolina, and I sing Javier. Malena Dayen (Fearless) directs, Julian Grabarek is music director.

If you know people in Wilmington who have never had a reason to walk into an opera house because nothing on the stage was in their language or their tradition, this is the invitation. I would genuinely welcome your help getting it to them!

In collaboration with Opera Hispánica.

Amahl and the Night Visitors

December 5 at 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM, and December 6 at 1:00 PM, Sunday Breakfast Mission

Menotti, in English, one hour, directed by OperaDelaware's new General Director: Eric Einhorn. A modern retelling staged as an immersive, site-specific production, in partnership with the Sunday Breakfast Mission, which serves the unhoused community in Wilmington.

Aundi Marie Moore sings the Mother, Musa Ngqungwana sings King Balthazar, Gerard Moon sings King Melchior, and Dante Doganiero sings the Page.

An opera about a poor family who has nothing left to give, performed in a building whose daily work is to help families like Amahl's.

Produced in partnership with the Sunday Breakfast Mission.

Written in Secret

January 22, 2027 at 7:30 PM and January 24 at 2:00 PM, OperaDelaware Studios

Janáček's The Diary of One Who Vanished paired with Daron Hagen's Songs of Madness and Sorrow. Forbidden love on one side, obsession and paranoia on the other, the second one a fractured chorus all carried by a single performer. Czech and English with English supertitles. Katherine M. Carter directs. One hour.

Full disclosure: I am the single performer. I have been looking for a platform to program Janáček's stirring and deeply personal work. It shows the composer at his most overtly sensual, in a timeless tale of illicit love and hot-headed seduction that shatter boundaries between cultures. Additionally, I love to communicate with audiences in English. This set from Daron Hagen is also a nod to my Midwestern upbringing as all of the texts he assembled are from various public domain sources from Wisconsin. Among many major debuts, this is the most exposed hour I will sing all season.

Le Villi

March 19 at 7:30 PM and March 21 at 2:00 PM, OperaDelaware Studios

Before Tosca, before Butterfly, before La bohème, there was Le Villi. Puccini wrote it at twenty-five. It is based on the same ghost story as the famous ballet Giselle. A young woman dies of heartbreak after her fiancé abandons her, and the forest spirits (the Wilis) summon him back to dance until he dies of it.

Emily Margevich sings Anna, Gerard Moon sings Guglielmo, and I sing Roberto. Katherine M. Carter directs. Italian with English supertitles.

If you love Puccini, this is where he found his voice, already fully-formed.

Orpheus Retold

April 9 at 7:30 PM and April 11 at 2:00 PM, OperaDelaware Studios

Three one-act operas on the oldest love story we have, from the point-of-view of three different living composers. Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's To Hell and Back. Jodi Goble's Eurydice, after the H.D. poem. Jonathan Dove's L'altra Euridice, after Calvino. Ninety minutes with one intermission.

The Goble is a world premiere of a new version written specifically for Emily Margevich. She sings alongside Chelsea Laggan and Gerard Moon. Sable Strout directs, Cris Frisco is music director.

Together the three ask who actually suffers in that story, who is to blame, and who has ever been allowed to speak.

One more thing

Look at the list again. Giovanni dragged down at the end of his hour. The Villi dancing a man to his death. Orpheus walking into the underworld three separate times in one evening. Janáček's diarist vanishing.

The Chamber Series this season is a season about descent. That was not an accident, and it is the thread that links these six performances to Don Giovanni and Orpheus and Eurydice on the mainstage.

My challenge to you: pick one and try it out.

However... if you pick three or pick five, you can save 15% and 20% respectively: check out our subscription options!

Tickets and full details at operade.org. Box office at 302-442-7807.

Get to know the cast of Don Giovanni

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Mozart’s Don Giovanni opens OperaDelaware’s 2026/27 season this October at The Grand Opera House. It is a co-production with Opera Baltimore, directed by Haley Stamats and conducted by Joshua Horsch in his OperaDelaware debut. This week, we wanted to introduce you to our marvelous cast – take a listen, and learn more!

Jonathan Bryan — Don Giovanni

Jonathan Bryan is a Dallas-born baritone praised for his “beautifully resonant baritone” and “substantial sound.” An alumnus of Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist Program, Wolf Trap Opera, and The Glimmerglass Festival, he has performed leading roles on stages throughout the United States and abroad. Recent seasons have included Baron Douphol in La traviata with Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music with Arizona Opera, and Beaumarchais in The Ghosts of Versailles at Glimmerglass. He holds degrees from Louisiana State University and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he studied with baritone Wolfgang Brendel.

Katerina Burton — Donna Anna

Katerina Burton is a soprano acclaimed for her “vocal fire and dramatic conviction” (Isthmus) and a 2024 winner of the George and Nora London Competition. A graduate of Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist Program and The Juilliard School, she has performed Mimì in La bohème with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff opposite Bryn Terfel at the Aspen Music Festival, and appeared as soprano soloist for the Kennedy Center premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s JFK: The Last Speech alongside the National Symphony Orchestra. She is a recipient of the prestigious Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation.

Sarah Coit — Donna Elvira

Sarah Coit is a mezzo-soprano making her role and company debut as Donna Elvira with OperaDelaware and Opera Baltimore this season. A native of Spring Hill, Florida, and a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of South Florida, she has performed at San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, Utah Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and Opera Tampa, among many others. She created the role of Polly Thompson in the world premiere of Touch with Opera Birmingham and has appeared in several world premieres throughout her career.

Hayden Smith — Don Ottavio

Hayden Smith is an American tenor praised for his “burnished tenor blessed with technique and glorious phrasing” (Houston Press). A native of Quakertown, Pennsylvania and a graduate of Temple University and Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he studied with Grammy Award-winning soprano Ana María Martínez, he has trained at Wolf Trap Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Des Moines Metro Opera, and the Music Academy of the West. Recent seasons have included company debuts with Annapolis Opera and Indianapolis Opera as Count Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, his Glimmerglass Festival debut as Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette, and an appearance with Des Moines Metro Opera in the world premiere of Damien Geter and Lila Palmer’s American Apollo.

Dylan Gregg — Leporello

Dylan Gregg is a bass-baritone from Salisbury, Maryland earning acclaim for his “booming young voice of effortless projection and smooth tone quality” (Palm Beach Daily News). Delaware audiences will remember him as Roucher in OperaDelaware’s company premiere of Andrea Chénier this past spring; Opera News called his performance “an unusually strong vocal and dramatic profile.” He has trained at The Academy of Vocal Arts, Santa Fe Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, and Des Moines Metro Opera, and holds degrees from Boston University and Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.

Robin Steitz — Zerlina

Robin Steitz is a Burmese-American soprano based in the Berkshires, Massachusetts, described as “a versatile and sensitive performing artist.” A Tanglewood Voice Fellow and former Young Artist with OperaDelaware, she has performed Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with OperaDelaware, Cunegonde in Candide with Northern Lights Music Festival, and has collaborated closely with living composers throughout her career, including the American premiere of Richard Ayres’ The Cricket Recovers at Tanglewood under the baton of Thomas Adès. She holds degrees from Reed College and the Eastman School of Music.

Gerard Moon — Masetto

Gerard Moon is a South Korean-born baritone and OperaDelaware Company Artist praised by OperaWire for “authority and command and incredible stage presence” and by the Lexington Herald-Leader for “a strong voice, impeccable diction, and a huge sense of fun.” Delaware audiences know him well -- he has sung Tonio in Pagliacci, Gérard in Andrea Chénier, and many other roles for OperaDelaware over the past four seasons. He holds his Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music from the University of Kentucky.

Matthew Anchel — Commendatore

Matthew Anchel is a bass hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “a voice to watch” who is now in his tenth season with The Metropolitan Opera, where he has appeared in productions including Tannhäuser, Dialogues des Carmélites, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Cendrillon, and Andrea Chénier. He has performed with Oper Stuttgart, Oper Leipzig, Glyndebourne Festival, Santa Fe Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Houston Symphony, among others. He appears on the Grammy-nominated recording of Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded.

Don Giovanni opens October 16 and 18 at The Grand Opera House in Wilmington. Season tickets are on sale now!

From School Visits to a Musical Home: How OperaDelaware's Young(est) Artists Are Changing the Game – by Emily Margevich

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Emily margevich as tosca | Operadelaware 2025 | moonloop photography

Thank you all so much for taking the time to read about an exciting new project for OperaDelaware! For those of you who don’t know me, I became the first Company Artist with OperaDelaware in September of 2024. When I am not singing on stage for the company, I am spearheading our Educational Outreach Program! From day one of working here, I knew I wanted to focus on bringing young people into our opera community! With the platform from being an OD Company Artist, I’ve been able to visit almost a dozen different schools and youth organizations sharing various forms of operatic curriculum that’s centered in improvisation. I have a lesson plan, but I want to meet the students with friendliness at their level of interest for that day. I want to introduce opera starting from a familiar place. When I was growing up, I didn’t know anything about opera even though I grew up in a musical family. Opera can be as accessible and as enjoyable as any entertainment choice, and that’s when my wheels started turning!

It was no surprise to me that young people were curious about opera; enthusiastic, thoughtful, creative, and eager to explore theatre and music with me. They asked smart questions and engaged with me immediately. They reminded me how I fell in love with this art form in the first place—my Grandma as my voice teacher and my mom as my theatre and dance teacher and model of what it means to be a citizen dedicated to their community.

My past and my present clicked, and I realized that OperaDelaware had the opportunity to provide something important that I had the privilege of living first hand my entire childhood—an artistic home for young people. OperaDelaware did not have any youth programs available when I became a Company Artist. So when I decided to spend this summer leading Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with young Delawareans, it was more than exciting—it was a chance to build something new for OperaDelaware, drawing on my own experience with performing arts education and my position as a Company Artist.

My goal isn't only to teach music, prepare a performance, or force a love for opera. I wanted students to feel confident using their minds, bodies, voices, and emotions in a space all together through experiencing me as an opera singer and getting comfortable with OperaDelaware—as audience members and as performers, too. I wanted to remind students that using our imaginations isn’t kid stuff—it’s what professional performers get paid to do all day long. I want to encourage the students to know that muscle for self expression and play isn’t something you grow out of; it’s a beautiful gift we all can exercise. Our free spirits should be cultivated, encouraged, shared, and seriously valued.

Students who first discovered us through outreach programs now run through our doors excited to rehearse, create, sing, dance, and spend time together. Families who may never have attended an opera before are becoming audience members and advocates for the arts. Most importantly, young people know they are welcomed at OperaDelaware. Whether they're aspiring musicians, theater-loving kids, curious first-timers, students still figuring out where they fit, or young people who had fun during my visits and wanted to continue using their imagination with me are all now on stage together thriving! They’re all finding community inside our opera studio.

A student I randomly met in the hallway of a school I was visiting is now my Production Assistant, creating props and set pieces for our show. I’ve no doubt they will have a career in theatre! The students and I are having so much fun preparing this important production together. We’re storytellers, and we understand each other. Yes, I'm their teacher and leader, but some of my favorite moments happen when we're collaborating together as partners in the process.

Our rehearsals are built on respect, humor, fun, inclusivity, support, kindness, focus, celebration, play, and hard work. We listen to one another's ideas positively. We learn from one another. We laugh a lot, we help out, and we applaud each other’s work loudly and proudly! Young people thrive when they're treated with respect and given a genuine voice. The rehearsal room becomes a place where everyone contributes, everyone grows, and everyone matters. Those are lessons that extend well beyond music.

The big age range of our participants is awesome. Ages 5 to 16—well, ages 5 to 30 if we count me—have become one family. In fact, this show is all about family. For example, the 12 people who play the siblings in this show are caring for each other like real family members on and off stage. Watching the older students instinctively take on leadership roles to help the younger kids is the best, heartwarming, and rewarding satisfaction. Perhaps the most treasured part of this program has been watching our students become their own community.

The story and the music makes the age difference disappear. The kind conversations and the fun friendships that are already solidified after just a few days of rehearsals is proof that our world can connect genuinely and instantly; and music is the best magic to bring people together. The students help each other remember entrances, set props, solve problems, and celebrate successes. We’re learning about life, responsibility, relationships, awareness, accountability, and communication—all through music and theatre. Experience doesn't matter. Background doesn't matter. What matters is learning how to coexist, collaborate, share ideas, share space, and care for one another. That’s why I worked hard to allow this program to exist. Young people are the best, and I want them to know about opera. We now have the next generation of opera goers walking through our studio doors every day. Who is going to go see operas in 10, 15 years? These students will. They’ll know what opera IS! They’ll have a relationship with an opera singer, now and forever. That’s cool!

The greatest validation has come from the students and families themselves. Their trust, support, and commitment have shown me that this work matters and is possible for OperaDelaware. A huge thank you to Company Artist Gerard Moon for his support setting up the stage and his fabulous wife, Yuri, who is our orchestra for the performance!

What started as a feeling that I needed to stay connected with students I met at school visits has become something much larger. We are creating a new OperaDelaware fan base- students and their families. We have such an amazing facility in the OperaDelaware Studios, and I am so grateful we are allowing that space to be where young people feel seen, valued, and inspired.

OperaDelaware strives to be a company with state-wide impact, and in our cast of Joseph we have students from Bellefonte, Middletown, Bear, Pike Creek, and Wilmington. Some schools represented in our cast are Richey Elementary, Cab Calloway School of the Arts, Padua Academy, Alfred G. Waters Middle School, Ursuline Academy, Springer Middle School, Odyssey Charter, and the organization Four Youth, to name a few!

With the gift of being a Company Artist, I've been allowed to create the kind of experience that shaped my own childhood—the skills I learned musically, socially, and morally growing up around music made me an adult that OperaDelaware wanted to hire two short years ago. I am so proud of the work the students and I are doing, and I am excited to share our efforts with OperaDelaware staff, fans, and patrons to reimagine how we can share opera, why we share opera, and with whom we share opera.

A few quotes from students and parents:

“I love the acting games! Practices are a lot of fun. I like the breaks for snacks, I also like Ms Emily, and when we get to talk with each other when we are early and meeting new people.” - Franklin

“OperaDelaware recently offered a workshop to introduce the art form to young people. My son and I attended, and Emily did an excellent job engaging the kids into the world of opera through discussion, song, demonstration, and fun games. Before this experience, I had never really considered how easily opera could become a lost art form if it is appreciated primarily by older generations who actively seek it out - it is not a mainstream art that is widely available or on the radar for most people living in this country. Inviting young people to participate in opera is a wonderful way to build a lifelong connection to it. I’m grateful that OperaDelaware is giving young performers the chance to stretch themselves artistically while helping ensure that opera continues to be discovered and appreciated by future generations.” - Kelly W.

“I LOVE Ms. Emily and all of my new friends!!”- Olivia

“We are thrilled to see OperaDelaware branch out to offer a youth production opportunity. This is in line with what other arts organizations are doing throughout the state, such as Wilmington Drama League and Delaware Symphony Orchestra. We are proud to help support Ms Emily, who is not only an amazing artist, but also an innovative educator who is bringing her love, energy, and commitment to every aspect of this production. We love that opera can be fun, accessible, and engaging in this way!” Grace and David

Limited tickets remain for the youth production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! Head to operade.org/tickets to secure yours today!

OperaDelaware Announces the 2026/27 Season

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OperaDelaware has announced the 2026/27 season under the new artistic vision of incoming General Director Eric Einhorn. The season offers audiences an ambitious and wide-ranging exploration of the operatic art form with two main stage masterworks at The Grand Opera House, a site-specific community production at the Sunday Breakfast Mission, and a series of intimate chamber performances at OperaDelaware Studios featuring Spanish zarzuela, a rare Puccini gem, and electrifying monodramas.

Of the announcement, incoming General Director Eric Einhorn says, “I am incredibly excited to start my tenure by sharing this dynamic season with OperaDelaware audiences, which sets out to explore the different forms opera can take and the places it can go. Partnerships with pillars of the nonprofit arts and social services community in Wilmington and beyond also feature prominently throughout the season to enhance the impact of our productions.” He adds, “I look forward to working alongside the OperaDelaware staff and board to launch this new vision, which is built on the strong foundation created by my predecessor, Brendan Cooke.”

OperaDelaware Main Stage Series

OperaDelaware opens its season with Mozart's Don Giovanni, a co-production with Opera Baltimore. Director Haley Stamats returns to OperaDelaware after directing Puccini’s La bohème in 2024 and Tosca in 2025 while conductor Joshua Horsch will make his OperaDelaware debut from the podium. This production stars Jonathan Bryan as the titular Don Giovanni, soprano Katerina Burton as Donna Anna, tenor Hayden Smith as Don Ottavio, mezzo-soprano Sarah Coit as Donna Elvira, bass baritone Dylan Gregg as Leporello, baritone Gerard Moon as Masetto, and soprano Robin Steitz as Zerlina. Written in 1787 with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, Don Giovanni is a moral thriller, a ghost story, and a comedy rolled into one. The opera follows the legendary libertine Don Giovanni as he evades the consequences of a lifetime of conquest and cruelty, until a final, supernatural reckoning forces him to choose between repentance and damnation. Performances with full orchestra at The Grand Opera House on October 16 at 7:30PM and October 18 at 2:00PM.

The season's spring main stage production is Christoph Willibald Glück's Orfeo ed Euridice (Orpheus and Eurydice), produced in partnership with First State Ballet Theatre.  Director Keturah Stickann makes her OperaDelaware debut, OD Music Director Anthony Barrese will conduct, and First State Ballet Theatre choreographer and dancer Zachary Kapeluck will choreograph. The production will star OD Company Artist soprano Emily Margevich (Eurydice) alongside Delaware-native soprano Jennifer Zetlan (Amore), and feature dancers from First State Ballet Theatre. Set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi, the opera integrates stirring vocalism and dynamic dance to tell the story of Orpheus’s descent into the Underworld to reclaim his late wife, Eurydice, and the devastating cost of a single broken promise. Orpheus and Eurydice changed the course of operatic history, and remains one of the most emotionally potent works in the repertoire. Performances with full orchestra at The Grand Opera House on May 21 at 7:30PM and May 23 at 2:00PM.

OperaDelaware Chamber Series

Ahead of its main stage production at The Grand Opera House, OperaDelaware will present Don Giovanni Portraits at The OperaDelaware Studios on October 8 and 10, an intimate preview built around a new chamber orchestra reduction of Mozart's score by Husan Chun-Novak. The program offers audiences a rare, up-close encounter with the opera's most pivotal characters and confrontations performed in the intimate setting of OperaDelaware Studios. Don Giovanni Portraits invites audiences to step inside Mozart's music before experiencing it in full scale this October at The Grand.

For the first time in its history, OperaDelaware will present zarzuela, a popular operatic form developed in Spain and made popular throughout the Spanish-speaking world. OperaDelaware Studios will present a chamber reduction of Federico Moreno Torroba's Luisa Fernanda, widely regarded as the last great romantic zarzuela. Premiered in Madrid in 1932, the work follows its heroine through a love triangle set against the political upheaval of 1868 Spain, pairing Torroba's vivid Spanish nationalism with sweeping, unforgettable melody. Fernanda will be directed by Malena Dayen, last seen at OperaDelaware with her production Derrick Wang’s Fearless and starring Company Artists Dane Suarez, Gerard Moon, and Emily Margevich. Performances at the OperaDelaware Studios on November 13 and 15, 2026, sung in Spanish with English translations. Produced in partnership with Opera Hispanica.

In a milestone new community partnership, OperaDelaware will present a site-specific production of Gian Carlo Menotti's beloved holiday opera Amahl and the Night Visitors at the Sunday Breakfast Mission, a Wilmington nonprofit located on the same city block as OperaDelaware, providing emergency shelter, rehabilitative programs, and community outreach to our most vulnerable citizens. OperaDelaware will present a modern re-telling of this beloved opera about generosity, hope, and faith in direct conversation with the community it serves. Directed by OperaDelaware’s General Director, Eric Einhorn. Performances at The Sunday Breakfast Mission on December 5 and 6, 2026.

OperaDelaware will present Written in Secret, an intimate pairing of tenor monodramas, on January 22 and 24, 2027. The program opens with Janáček's The Diary of One Who Vanished, based on a 1916 newspaper diary of a village boy's forbidden love for a Roma girl named Zefka. It closes with Daron Hagen's Songs of Madness and Sorrow, a mutli-character work voiced by a single performer channeling the collapsing psyche of a small town at the close of the nineteenth century, where market panic and epidemic disease gave rise to two kinds of madness: obsessive ritual and paranoia. Stage director Katherine M. Carter makes her OD debut and Dane Suarez stars in this rare and limited studio engagement.

Audiences will have a rare opportunity to hear where it all began: Giacomo Puccini's first opera, Le Villi (1884), a gothic tale of love and vengeance rooted in the same Central European folklore that inspired the ballet Giselle. Composed when Puccini was just twenty-five, Le Villi reveals the dramatic instinct and melodic gift that would define the career of one of opera's greatest voices.

Orpheus Retold brings together three one-act operas that reimagine the world's oldest love story from radically different perspectives. Featuring OperaDelaware Company Artists and the music of three living composers, the program opens with Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's To Hell and Back, a devastating chamber drama recasting the abduction of Persephone as a modern story of spousal abuse. It continues with Eurydice by Jodi Goble — receiving its world premiere in a new version created specifically for Company Artist Emily Margevich — a through-composed setting of Hilda Doolittle's Imagist poem that gives voice to the silent Eurydice. The evening closes with Jonathan Dove's L'altra Euridice, from his trilogy Tales of Hope and Desire, which inverts the myth entirely by telling the story from the perspective of Pluto, recasting the god of the underworld not as villain but as a devoted partner undone by loss.

The thread through all of it:

Every story in this season turns on a single moment of choice. Don Giovanni chooses damnation over repentance. A man chooses to leave the woman who loves him. A mother chooses to steal, is caught, and grace arrives anyway. Orpheus, at the other end of the season, chooses doubt over trust at the last possible second.

Opera has always known that the most interesting thing about a person is what they do when everything is at stake. This season is built around that question.

Season tickets are on sale July 16. We hope you'll be here for all of it.