Congratulations to Sarah Kirkland Snider, winner of the 2026 award for Best New Opera from the Music Critics Association of North America for Hildegard. The opera was co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival and School and premiered last November in Los Angeles and then presented at this year’s Prototype Festival in New York.
The Awards Committee praised Hildegard as “a compelling work of historical fiction [that] explores the life and mind of the 12th-century Benedictine abbess, visionary, and composer Hildegard von Bingen. Snider’s well-crafted libretto sets the action at a biographical turning point in 1147, when Hildegard’s transcribed visions were submitted to the pope, who would declare her to be either a prophet or a heretic.
This complex heroine, who stands up to the power of the church and is disturbed by the nature of her feelings for a young novice, is captured in Snider’s distinctive, haunting music, which reaches its apogee in the brilliantly explosive visions. Remarkable timbral variety belies the small size of the accompanying ensemble, and throughout, the opera’s musical radiance illuminates Hildegard’s visceral connection with the divine.”
Hildegard will now travel to the co-commissioning Aspen Music Festival, where it will be presented on 31 July.
Filed under: American opera, Aspen Music Festival, music news, new opera, Prototype Festival
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 