A socialite's death by cannibalism, a forced lobotomy meant to silence the truth, and a single singing voice cutting through a stage full of spoken dialogue — that's the unsettling mix Opera Philadelphia brings to the Forrest Theatre starting Thursday. The company's new chamber opera adaptation of Tennessee Williams's 1958 play Suddenly Last Summer runs for three performances, Oct. 22, 23, and 25, with tickets priced between $11 and $250.
The production’s defining choice is that Catherine, the traumatized witness, is the only principal character who sings; the people around her speak. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, Opera Philadelphia General Director Anthony Roth Costanzo described the choice as giving Catherine a way to sing her truth. Soprano Mikaela Bennett plays Catherine and has said her aim is to deliver the text honestly without directing the audience’s response, according to the same account.
A Story Williams Could Only Tell Sideways
In the play, Catherine recounts the killing of socialite Sebastian Venable by a mob of boys he had abused while vacationing in Spain. His mother, Mrs. Venable, proposes a lobotomy for Catherine, seeking to suppress the account. The Inquirer reports that Catherine has survived a date rape and is given a truth serum, likely sodium pentothal, in an effort to extract what she knows.
Williams, who lived from 1911 to 1983, wrote the play in 1958, and he was troubled by his sister's lobotomy, the Inquirer notes. That detail isn't incidental set dressing: Tennessee Williams's older sister, Rose Isabel Williams, underwent an unwanted prefrontal lobotomy in March 1943 after a schizophrenia diagnosis, leaving her institutionalized until her death around 2005 or 2006, according to Playbill. That history fed directly into the themes of mental confinement and forced silence that recur throughout his work.
Costanzo told the Inquirer that Williams wrote amid laws that constrained positive depictions of homosexuality onstage, with theaters facing possible police arrests and closures. The resulting allegory takes on a different force in Bryan and Fish’s 2026 production, which brings sexual violence, wealth and forced silence into a contemporary staging.
A historical note on theater censorship
The Atlantic reports that New York state prohibited theaters from staging plays with queer characters in 1927. That restriction is a distinct historical precedent, not evidence of a single nationwide ban in the 1950s.
Building an Opera With No Template
Bryan, a New Orleans-born composer and MacArthur Fellow who served as Opera Philadelphia’s resident composer from 2022 to 2024, developed the vocal material through improvisation and workshops with Bennett, the Inquirer reports. She said the adaptation offered no established template, leaving room to shape the score around each scene.
Fish, director of the Tony Award-winning revival of Oklahoma!, encouraged Bennett to approach Catherine without conventional framing, according to the Inquirer. Conductor Nathan Koci, who first worked with Fish on that production, leads the Philadelphia performances. The work moves between opera and spoken drama, with music underscoring much of the action; Mrs. Venable’s passages use a tone row drawn from a strict compositional system, the Inquirer reports.
Opera Philadelphia identifies Fish and Fisher Center Artistic Director Gideon Lester as co-writers of the libretto, while Bryan began developing the opera during her 2022–2024 residency with the company. The opera premiered this year at Bard SummerScape, where critics praised Bennett's performance and noted that Bryan approached the operatic medium entirely on her own terms, blending New Orleans-inspired sultriness with improvisatory freedom.
Local Voices and Accessibility at the Forrest
While the Bard premiere featured the Young People's Chorus of New York City, Opera Philadelphia's local staging swaps in youth vocalists from the Philadelphia Boys Choir under Artistic Director Jeffrey R. Smith, Opera Philadelphia says. The company has also partnered with local nonprofit Art-Reach to provide live audio description services for blind and low-vision audience members during the Oct. 23 and Oct. 25 performances.
What audio description includes
For blind and low-vision patrons, Opera Philadelphia says its audio-description service provides live narration of stage action and other visual details, including performers’ expressions, sets, costumes, lighting and props. Pre-show notes cover information such as the plot, translations and venue.
The Philadelphia run fits into a broader access push for the company. Opera Philadelphia introduced a Pick Your Price model in August 2024 letting patrons buy tickets starting at $11, a strategy that generated sold-out performances across the season and pushed first-time opera buyers to 67% of single-ticket sales, according to the Associated Press. Costanzo has led the company as president and general director since June 2024, pairing that pricing experiment with artistically ambitious programming like this adaptation.
Suddenly Last Summer plays at 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Forrest Theatre, with tickets ranging from $11 to $250. Those with questions can reach Opera Philadelphia at 215-732-8400.
