Lucia Lucas as Lili Elbe in the U.S. premiere at the Sante Fe Opera. Photo credits: Bronwen Sharp for the Sante Fe Opera
“It’s a love story,” says Aryeh Lev Stollman, MD, a neuroradiologist at Mount Sinai and the librettist for the opera, Lili Elbe, which tells the story of one of the earliest recipients of gender-affirming surgery in 1930. The groundbreaking opera had its U.S. premiere at the Sante Fe Opera on August 1.
Lili Elbe is the true story of a successful Danish painter who was married to another painter, Gerda Wegener. Though Lili’s name and sex were legally changed, they remained in love with each other. Lili’s case drew international attention, and a semi-autographical account of her story was captured in a book, Man Into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex.
“We based our story on historical sources,” emphasizes Dr. Stollman. “Lili Elbe was quite famous in her day, so we relied on her own writings and news accounts from the time.”
Lili Elbe discovers her true nature as a woman when her wife, Gerda, asks her to stand in for a female model who was delayed for a painting session. Gerda is entranced with the beauty of her husband, then called Einar Wegener, and it is she who bestows the name Lili. And as Lili embraces her identity, she says, “When you paint me now, I feel I have always been her.”
Lili becomes a muse to Gerda, whose paintings of Lili win acclaim. But Gerda wrestles with how much space to allow Lili in their marriage. At first, she insists that Lili transition back to Einar in the evening. But as Lili makes her true identity known among their circle of friends, Lili wants to experience all the feelings of womanhood, including marriage and motherhood, which were Lili’s ideas of what it meant to be a woman in her time. And even though their marriage is annulled and they become involved with other lovers, their love for each other endures.
The score was written by Tobias Picker, a Grammy Award-winning composer, who is married to Dr. Stollman. This is the second time Mr. Picker and Dr. Stollman have collaborated. The first was the opera Awakenings, based on the story of Oliver Sacks, MD, and his efforts to treat patients with sleeping sickness. That opera opened in June 2022 at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Their third opera collaboration, Safe Haven, will premiere in June 2027 at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
Originally commissioned by and performed at the Theater St. Gallen of Switzerland in 2023, Lili Elbe was named “Best World Premiere” at the OPER! AWARDS held at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. The new production in Santa Fe is garnering applause and accolades as well.
“There was a standing ovation on both the first and second night in Sante Fe,” says Dr. Stollman. “It was quite wonderful.”
Lili Elbe is gaining favorable attention in the press as well, with the New York Times featuring the opera in its Arts and Leisure section, and the Wall Street Journal praising the premiere as “a multi-layered work” with Dr. Stollman’s “skillfully crafted libretto.” Musical America, the oldest and longest-running magazine for classical music and the performing arts in the United States said, “Picker’s score sustains this intertwined drama with assurance, at times expanding into passages of transporting lyricism.”
The opera Lili Elbe, in addition to being acclaimed for its artistry, is a significant milestone for being the first grand opera for and about a person with trans experience. It stars Lucia Lucas, a baritone, who reprises her role from the European production. Mr. Picker befriended Ms. Lucas when he cast her in Don Giovanni in a Tulsa Opera production—the first time a transgender singer had played the leading role in an American opera.
Mr. Picker, Dr. Stollman, and Ms. Lucas wanted to collaborate on an original project, and the story of Lili Elbe was chosen. “When Tobias asked me to write the libretto—or the story and lyrics—I wanted to work very closely with Lucia who served as dramaturg, a guide and advisor, to gain the insight of her experience and authenticity, and to better understand Lili who lived in different times,” says Dr. Stollman.
“We wanted Lili Elbe to have a mythic undercurrent,” Dr. Stollman says. “In Lili Elbe, the myth of Orpheus leading his lover, Eurydice, out of the underworld is a motif that reoccurs. The very first scene takes place with the main characters attending a play about Orpheus and Eurydice. In the myth, Orpheus is saying, ‘Don’t look back, you cannot return to your old life, but you are coming into a new life.’ I believe that myths have a strong emotional truth, and our characters are always moving to the future, to a new life, a new realization. And that’s the mythological underpinning.”
“Also, the opera is more than about love with a transgender person,” Dr. Stollman says. “It’s about love and transcending difficulties. It’s about a tragic heroine’s journey that starts with self-knowledge. And it’s about loss, because Gerda loses Lili. But also, because Lili dies in the end, as many tragic heroines do.”
There are significant differences between the Swiss and the American productions. “We were very happy with the production and interpretation done in St. Gallen, and the one done in Santa Fe is totally different, but we’re very happy with that too,” says Dr. Stollman. “It’s nice to see two different approaches to the same piece. It enriches the piece to have different directorial and production points of view.”
“For example, the staging and choreography of the opera in Saint Gallen were more modernistic, innovative, and witty. In the Santa Fe production, the scenery and costumes are more sumptuous and evoke the elegant, upper class European period of the 1920s and early 1930s. The director of the Sante Fe production, James Robinson, is renowned in the opera world and has directed at the Metropolitan Opera and is now the General and Artistic Director of the Seattle Opera, so we were very fortunate to work with him. The Santa Fe production is actually a co-production with the Seattle Opera, and he will be bringing Lili Elbe to Seattle in 2029.”
The creative process is different each time, according to Dr. Stollman. “It’s always challenging to write a new opera from scratch. But I enjoy getting into the characters’ minds and emotions. I like that each character is different, and I get to learn more about different types of people and situations. What they all have in common is that they face challenges and adversity, and I’m fascinated by each of their journeys.”
“I am very fortunate that my career as a librettist continues to grow,” adds Dr. Stollman. “When I went with Tobias to the premiere of his first opera, Emmeline, in Santa Fe thirty years ago, I never imagined that I would one day be on the stage, bowing with him—or that I would have any part in the opera world. I was writing award-winning novels, but I had no concept that I would be blessed with the opportunity and great privilege to be involved in that grand artistic tradition.”