2026 festival includes:
BMP: SONGBOOK CONCERT & CELEBRATION
January 7-8
Beth Morrison Projects presents BMP: SONGBOOK, a live performance and multi-faceted celebration marking two decades of trailblazing innovation in American opera. Over two unforgettable evenings, BMP: SONGBOOK brings together extraordinary artists who helped shape BMP’s legacy, performing highlights from some of our most iconic productions.
PRECIPICE
January 8-11
PRECIPICE sets an intimate story of a young woman’s struggle in the epic landscape of America’s mountain west. Like the land around her, her wild spirit is crushed by disregard. She escapes to the precipice and leaps, awakening mute in a wilderness in which she must fight to find her voice.
HILDEGARD
January 9-11 & 14
HILDEGARD is a work of operatic historical fiction about twelfth-century German Benedictine abbess/polymath St. Hildegard von Bingen. Set in 1147, the opera follows Hildegard as she receives visions from God. While transcribing these visions for Papal evaluation – a process that will decide her prophet or heretic – she enlists the young convalescent Richardis von Stade to illustrate the manuscript. As they develop a transformative collaboration that awakens them in ways both profound and unexpected, the two women must confront the powers that would see them erased from history rather than authoring it. At the same time, Hildegard is haunted by mysterious visions she cannot explain, forcing her to grapple with unacknowledged truths she can no longer deny.
The All Sing: Hwael-Rad
January 11
The All Sing: Hwael-Rad (Whale-Road) is an ode to song and human-animal connection, uniting hundreds of voices in a vibrant tapestry of black metal blast beats and tender choral whalesong. From those who tread the boards of our most hallowed stages to those who love to belt in the shower, all are invited to join the choir for this world premiere choral work, and to raise their voices in a powerful communal experience, bridging the gap between humanity and those who dwell beneath the ocean’s depths.
What to Wear
January 15-18
For the first time in 20 years, What to wear — the comedic post-rock opera by composer Michael Gordon and the late downtown theater renegade icon Richard Foreman — returns to the stage in its New York Premiere. The production brings back to life Foreman’s original staging and production, with creative direction by Big Dance Theater co-founders Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, with Special Guest Performer St. Vincent!
Art Bath
January 16-17
Art Bath draws from the tradition of the art salon to create a multi-sensory artistic journey. Known for fusing disciplines such as opera, music, theater, puppetry, and visual art, ART BATH presents an eclectic range of world-class performers, unexpected collaborations and the thrill of new work unfolding in real time—all in a space transformed to invite curiosity, connection and creative surprise.
Tiergarten
January 16
Death of Classical's immersive, subversive, underground cabaret event takes its name from the Tiergarten—“The Garden of Beasts”—a sprawling central park in Berlin around which the murderous leaders of the Third Reich rose to power. Directed by Andrew Ousley, the program traces a path backwards in time, exploring historic moments of societal madness through music ranging from Handel and Verdi to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dean Martin to Max Richter, William Byrd to Brecht & Weill, with a panoply of performances that includes opera, classical, jazz, ballet, burlesque and more.
