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PREVIEW: Minnesota Opera’s 2026-2027 Season

by Twin Cities Arts Reader -

Minnesota Opera returns to its mainstage home at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Saint Paul, MN in 2026-2027.

Minnesota Opera has announced its 64th season, with a trio of operas old and new.

The season will feature the world premiere of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by librettist Minita Gandhi and composer Kamala Sankaram, an immersive adaptation of the graphic novel by Ram V. and Filipe Andrade. The work was commissioned and developed through MN Opera’s New Works Initiative.

The season will also visit an earlier period than Minnesota Opera’s typical fair, delving into the Baroque with George Frideric Handel and Antonio Salvi’s emotionally evocative opera seria Ariodante. First performed at the Covent Garden Theatre in London on January 8, 1735, the opera was written as the season-opening shot in the rivalry between Handel’s opera company and the newly formed Opera of the Nobility. (Handel won, but both companies ultimately went bankrupt.) Ginevra, daughter of the King of Scotland, is in love with and betrothed to Prince Ariodante. Rival suitors initiate a plot, and many mistaken impressions are had before love and family bonds triumph.

The graphic novel The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V. and Filipe Andrade will be adapted into a full-length opera.

Rounding out the season is Guiseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito’s exuberant comedy Falstaff – the final opera that Verdi composed, following their successful collaboration on Otello. Arrigo Boito adapted the story from William Shakespeare’s plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. The plot follows the aging and hedonistic knight Sir John Falstaff’s attempts to seduce two married women, turning a recurring thread in Shakespeare’s history plays into the inciting event. The opera took the pair three years to complete, and premiered at La Scala in Milan on February 9, 1893.

“We view programming a season as an act of stewardship,” said MN Opera President and General Director Ryan Taylor. “We’re responsible for both honoring the repertoire that has shaped this art form for centuries while also investing in and lifting up the voices that will define its future. With our 52nd world premiere, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, alongside Handel’s Ariodante and Verdi’s Falstaff, this lineup reflects that balance…celebrating both how we got here and what possibilities exist now and in the future!”

World-renown soprano and Anoka native Ellie Dehn (Albert Herring) will join the company as Repertory Artist-Faculty for the 2026-2027 season, performing in both Ariodante and Falstaff and serving as a mentor and instructor to the recently announced cohort of Resident Artists.

The season will present a mix of familiar faces, exciting company debuts, and significant roles for MN Opera’s Resident Artists. The Many Deaths of Laila Starr will feature soprano Leela Subramaniam as Laila Starr, tenor Omar Najmi as Darius, baritone Efraín Solís (Cruzar la Cara de la Luna) as Pranah, and mezzo-soprano Mariam Mouawad as Agni/Ka the Crow/Cigarette.

Ariodante will feature incoming Resident Artist mezzo-soprano Julia Holoman in the title role, Ellie Dehn as Ginevra, and incoming Resident Artist soprano Emily Finke as Dalinda. Falstaff will feature bass-baritone Craig Colclough (Don Pasquale) as Sir John Falstaff, Ellie Dehn as Alice Ford, baritone Norman Garrett as Ford, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Dame Quickly, Emily Finke as Nannetta, and third-year Resident Artist tenor Ángel Vargas as Fenton.

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