Beth Morrison On Reshaping the Boundaries of Contemporary Opera

After Beth Morrison earned her bachelor of music at Boston University and a master’s of music at Arizona State University, she moved to New York City with limelight ambitions. What she encountered were like-minded creatives grousing about the entertainment industry’s indifference, which she set out to remedy by earning an MFA in theater management/producing at Yale School of Drama. Returning to New York in 2005, she set up Beth Morrison Productions and resumed grumbling over industry indifference.

Since then, BMP has become the country’s premier hothouse for new opera, staging more than 50 productions, including Pulitzer Prize winners Angel’s Bone by Du Yun and Royce Vavrek and p r i s m by Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins. A Grammy nominee, BMP has four titles nominated for 2026, including Adoration and Trade / Mary Motorhead. Starting tomorrow, the company celebrates its quarter-century anniversary with the 2026 Prototype Festival, which this year will mount six productions at venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan. “I’ve been working for this change,” Morrison tells Observer. “It’s why I got into what I do in the first place, to create this new kind of opera. And I think we’ve done that. We have 15+ seasons in our history showing that, and we’ve inspired others as well.”

Fans will find inspiration in the BMP: Songbook Concert and Celebration (Jan. 7-8), a performance pulling together their greatest hits, with 14 arias culled from the company’s storied history and sung by the original artists. (If you can’t make the show, pick up the album, a double-disc vinyl set featuring 60 arias. It goes well with the BMP Songbook Anthology, a 500-page coffee table book celebrating the company’s history.)

Precipice takes to the boards Jan. 8-11, the story of a young woman’s struggle set against the epic backdrop of the mountainous West. Leaping from a tall cliff, she awakens mute in the wilderness, where she must fight to recover her voice. Set to Rima Fand’s folk-inspired score, Precipice incorporates sounds from nature, singers, string quintet, piano and mandolin.

Hildegard makes its New York City premiere Jan. 9-11 and 14. This must-see opera by the incomparable composer Sarah Kirkland Snider is named for the 12th-century German nun Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic, visionary, writer, composer, philosopher and medical practitioner. The world premiere in Los Angeles last November drew superlative reviews on both coasts. “I’m so proud of her,” Morrison said at the time. “It’s been totally a labor of love. She loves Hildegard so much, the historical figure, and she’s written such a beautiful piece.”

If you can’t make it to Brooklyn, try Times Square on Jan. 11 for The All Sing: Hwael-Rād (Whale-Road) and join the choir for this world premiere choral work bridging the gap between humanity and our ocean-dwelling friends. “It’s this goth-industrial music meets classical,” is how Morrison describes the world premiere piece by composer Jens Ibsen. “We’ll have music up on the website, and anyone can download it and learn it and come and sing with us.”

The New York premiere of the comedic post-rock opera What to Wear (Jan. 15-18) by Michael Gordon and the late avant-garde theater icon Richard Foreman draws from the latter’s original staging. A collaboration between BMP, BAM and Bang on a Can, this acerbic commentary on society’s superficiality features a cameo by St. Vincent. “Already we’re selling out and had to add a performance. It’s going to be the hardest ticket to find. It’s a huge lift because it’s raising a lot of money in a short period of time to get it done, and it’s a complicated production,” says Morrison. “It’s crazy and amazing, it reminds me of Einstein on the Beach. It’s a spectacular show, truly one to blow people’s minds.”

On Jan. 16-17, submerge yourself in Art Bath, a cross-disciplinary experience highlighting female voices and genre-bending music and opera, theater, puppetry and visual art. Also not to be missed is Tiergarten on Jan. 16, a Weimar cabaret in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Carroll Street. Directed by Andrew Ousley, it explores historical moments of societal madness, featuring music by Handel, Verdi, Dean Martin, Max Richter, William Byrd, Brecht, Weill and songs from The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the form of opera, classical, jazz, ballet and burlesque.

Over the years, BMP has expanded to a staff of 14 and launched its Next Gen program fostering emerging opera composers. From it, one is offered a commission for an evening-length work as well as a world premiere production. BMP’s partnership with LA Opera has resulted in 17 shows in 10 years. The Prototype Festival has only been in existence for 15 years, relying mainly on the generosity of individual donors, including the Mellon Foundation, a major backer whose agreement with BMP runs out in 2028—something that has sent Morrison scrambling.

“If we don’t replace it, what does that mean? What will the festival look like? That’s our challenge now. I’m someone who’s a very pragmatic dreamer. I’ve got a couple of big ideas that I’m working on right now to bring a lot of partners together to create something larger than ourselves, exploring opportunities,” she says, lamenting, like so many arts institutions, the loss of NEA money after 560 grants totaling over $27 million were cut last May.

“A lot of foundations have left the arts that were really holding it together or have changed their priority in how they fund the arts. And a lot of individual donors who have propped up the non-profit performing arts for decades are aging out. A lot are dying, and there isn’t anybody coming up and taking their place,” she says. “It’s not easy, but it’s never been easy. It’s harder than it’s ever been. We’re announcing thirteen commissions over the next five years. It’s a big campaign for us. We’ve never done a campaign like this before, but it’s exciting. There’s a lot of amazing work being done here that people should feel good about. We’re just trying to create a conversation about what opera can be in the 21st Century.”

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