La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club PROUDLY PRESENTS THE WORLD PREMIERE of ALLEGRA & THE CELLO, IN MOVEMENTS

A HIGH HARD HEAT/ Dominick Balletta Production

Story & Libretto by Catherine Filloux Music by Julia Schwartz ​ | ​ Directed by Elena Araoz

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, New York City ​ | ​ December 10-20, 2026

Grammy Award-Winning Soprano Brittany Renee and Award-winning Cellist Legend Sarah Overton Star in a 400-Year First: The First Woman Doctor as Lead Character in the Opera Canon

NEW YORK, August 14, 2026: La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club proudly presents the world premiere of Allegra & the Cello, in Movements, a new opera with story and libretto by Catherine Filloux and music by Julia Schwartz, directed by Elena Araoz. A High Hard Heat/Dominick Balletta production, this new opera runs December 10-20, 2026, at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City. Tickets are on sale at lamama.org.

In a canon spanning more than four centuries, no opera has ever placed a woman doctor at its center until now. Allegra, the opera's protagonist, is believed to be the first female physician to serve as the lead character in the art form's history, a milestone achieved not through an institutional commission but through artistic will.

Filloux, an established playwright and librettist whose career spans three decades centered on human rights, women's voices, and art's capacity to bear witness, conceived and developed the opera entirely on her own initiative, outside the traditional commission system. Her previous opera, Orlando (libretto by Filloux, music by Olga Neuwirth), made history as the first opera ever staged at the Vienna Staatsoper by a woman composer and woman librettist and went on to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.

"I couldn't wait for permission," says Filloux. "If I had, it wouldn't have happened at all. I created Allegra for a soprano star and a cellist star, a role for a woman in her 30s to 50s, of any ethnicity, because I believe this story needed to exist in the world, and it was mine to make."

GRAMMY Award winner Brittany Renee, currently performing Bess in Porgy & Bess at the Metropolitan Opera, takes on the title role of Allegra. Acclaimed cellist Sarah Overton accompanies the 70-minute work alongside her. Overton is a 2025 New Music USA Creative Fund Award winner who has shared stages and sessions with Alicia Keys, Lalah Hathaway, Asake (Red Bull Symphonic), among many others.

Director Elena Araoz leads the creative team, which includes Tony Award-winning set and lighting designer Justin Townsend, Slumdog Millionaire costume designer Suttirat Larlarb, Brynne Oster-Bainnson, and projection designer Milton Cordero. Casting is by Jamibeth Margolis CSA. La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club presents this world premiere, a High Hard Heat (Dominick Balletta) production. Milan Eldridge as stage manager, Katie Rosin and Erin Kramer as Press Representatives; Social Media by Daniel Rosen.

La MaMa is one of Filloux's artistic homes, where her last four productions have premiered, including works directed by Araoz, a collaboration that deepens with this new opera. The production is designed to travel: French and Spanish translations are in development, with further productions planned for international markets.

“Catherine Filloux’s plays are more than just stories; they’re catalysts; they aim to send you forth from the theater not just satisfied and thinking but to make change in the world.” — Matt Barbot, Immigrant Report

“Opera Against the Patriarchy.” — Alex Ross, The New Yorker (on Orlando, Vienna State Opera)

“The man who invented the word genocide, Raphael Lemkin, turns out to have an unsettled afterlife in the compelling drama by Catherine Filloux… A call to action.” — Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times (on Lemkin’s House)

BIOGRAPHIES

CATHERINE FILLOUX (Story and Libretto) is an award-winning French-Algerian-American playwright and librettist who has been writing about human rights for many decades. Filloux’s 40 plays and libretti have been produced in the U.S. and internationally, and are widely published, anthologized, and written about. Catherine is the librettist for four produced operas: New Arrivals (Houston Grand Opera, composer John Glover); Where Elephants Weep (Chenla Theatre, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, composer Him Sophy) Cambodian national TV and Broadway on Demand; The Floating Box (Asia Society, NYC, composer Jason Kao Hwang) New World Records; co-librettist with composer Olga Neuwirth for Orlando, Vienna State Opera, Grawemeyer Award winner, Komische Opera Berlin. Filloux’s new musical Welcome to the Big Dipper (composer Jimmy Roberts, co-bookwriter John Daggett) appeared Off-Broadway at the York Theatre, cast recording by StarVista Music, 2027 season, ACTORS Inc., Ames, Iowa. Catherine’s new epistolary play Third Person premiered at CultureHub in New York City, and her new play Olivia is part of her recent call to action, the first in Filloux’s trilogy about the climate crisis; the other two plays are Medusa and Deep Time. Filloux has traveled to conflict areas for her plays, including Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Sudan, and South Sudan. She received her French Baccalaureate in Philosophy with Honors in Toulon, France www.catherinefilloux.com

JULIA SCHWARTZ (Music) is a composer, conductor, and soprano born in Columbus, Ohio, who grew up in a musical family; her father, Paul Schwartz, founded the music department at Kenyon College. After graduating from the Oberlin College Conservatory with a bachelor's degree in voice, she continued her studies in voice and music theory in Munich and Zurich. She composes pieces of music theater, choral and orchestral works, vocal and instrumental chamber music, art songs, and works for solo instruments. Her works have been performed in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Poland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Bolivia, and the U.S. Several of her works have been published by German music publishing houses: Carus, Furoer, and Certosa. Julia is active as a choral conductor and currently directs the Neuwerkchor and the Chorellen in Constance, Germany and BLECH in Bischofszell, Switzerland. She participated in continuing education programs in choral and orchestral conducting at the Zurich University of the Arts for several years. The latter included intensive rehearsal weeks and performances with orchestras in Bulgaria. She is a board member of musica femina münchen and participates in the Forum für vokale Vielfalt. She teaches voice privately and lives in Frauenfeld, Switzerland www.juliaschwartz.ch

ELENA ARAOZ (Director) is a stage director of theater, opera, multi-media performance, and large-scale immersive theatrical events, working internationally, Off-Broadway, and across the country. Elena is attracted to epic stories, and her productions are known for huge dance-like theatrics and acutely naturalistic acting. The New York Times has praised Araoz's productions as “form-busting and gorgeous,” “striking,” “primal,” “wild,” “stirring,” and “refreshingly natural” The Boston Globe as “riveting,” “dreamy,” and “vivid,” and The New Yorker as “refreshing.

ABOUT LA MAMA
​La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. La MaMa's 65th Season, ONENESS, focuses on creating solidarity and community, exploring ways to build connections for cross-sector coalition and invites artists, activists, organizers and community members into the creative process. We build audiences that are integral to the creative process. Our local and global community members who gather in our physical, digital, and hybrid spaces to see new work are often the first audience for that work. La MaMa believes art is a force for change.

La MaMa has been honored with 30+ Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie Awards, Villager Awards, the 2018 Regional Theatre Tony Award, and most recently a 2023 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Citation. We are a creative home to artists and resident companies from around the world, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, Robert De Niro, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Cole Escola, Bridget Everett, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Charlotte Brathwaite, Charles Ludlam, Haruna Lee, Tom Eyen, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Meredith Monk, David and Amy Sedaris, Stephanie Hsu, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Tom O'Horgan, Heather Christian, Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, and Andy Warhol. La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work from all nations, cultures, races and identities remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961.

For more info, visit: lamama.org.

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