Music by Gregory Spears
Co-creator & stage director Jenny Koons
Inspired by the writings of Robert Walser and others
Composer Gregory Spears, whose music has been called “astonishingly beautiful” (The New York Times), “coolly entrancing” (The New Yorker), and “some of the most beautifully unsettling music to appear in recent memory” (The Boston Globe), creates a labyrinthine soundscape to accompany a dream-like rendering of the fairytale “Sleeping Beauty,” inspired by modernist writer Robert Walser. As the work’s chorus sings itself in and out of slumber, the voices pull us into a liminal space where time is both fractured and cyclical. Conceived with and directed by Jenny Koons, this new work activates a collective voice to question the fragile line between waking and dreaming.
Commissioned by Opera Philadelphia, the complete work will receive its world premiere in April 2026. Details>>
Tickets: $15 (adults); free for full-time students (1 ticket per valid ID)
DISCOVER
Learn more about Opera Fusion: New Works, a partnership between Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) dedicated to fostering the development of new American operas.