NEW YORK, November 9, 2026: Introducing the Allegra Circle, a group of doctors, lawyers, scholars and artists working in reproductive health and human rights, supporting 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. Five post-show conversations will feature special guest members of the Circle and artists from the production. A High Hard Heat/Dominick Balletta production, the opera runs December 10 through 20, 2026, at La MaMa in New York City. Tickets are on sale now at lamama.org.
The Allegra Circle includes Charlotte Brielle (Wombs of the World & WotW Foundation), Talcott Camp (civil liberties and reproductive rights litigator), Rebecca J. Cook (University of Toronto Faculty of Law), Michele Bratcher Goodwin (O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and Brennan Center for Justice), Sofia Gruskin (University of Southern California), Christine Toy Johnson (performer, writer and filmmaker), Frances Kissling (Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy), Nela Navarro (Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University), Dr. Steven J. Ralston (obstetrician-gynecologist, Washington, D.C.) and Dr. Lynette Sieger-Kamimura (global legal and political theorist).
"Librettist Catherine Filloux always creates intellectually complex and deeply impactful work, and I'm so excited to bear witness to this powerhouse collaboration of world-renowned women artists. Filloux, and composer Julia Schwartz, director Elena Araoz, soprano Brittany Renee, cellist Akua Dixon are sure to bring the house down!" - Christine Toy Johnson
"Coming to the opera means opening our hearts to voice. In Allegra, we listen to the voice of a doctor who listens deeply to her patients. She is a daughter, a wife, a scientist, and a provider of the reproductive health care her patients need. Hers is the kind of moral voice we should listen to more." - Talcott Camp
"Well this is not complicated: I am a singer, a cellist, and a high-risk obstetrician who is also an abortion provider. I'm not sure I could have imagined a better entwining of my vocation and avocations than this opera!" - Dr. Steven J. Ralston
"Allegra & the Cello, in Movements is a compelling meditation on justice and the uneasy space between law and conscience. Through Allegra's story, the opera asks what happens when legal systems demand obedience to rules that may conflict with a doctor's ethical duty to preserve life and dignity. Particularly timely, the work speaks directly to ongoing debates over reproductive freedom, the reach of state power, and the consequences faced by those whose professional and moral convictions come into conflict with the law. Its exploration of reproductive freedom, political power, war, and personal accountability gives the opera a resonance that extends well beyond Allegra's individual case." - Dr. Lynette Sieger-Kamimura
Opera has been around for more than four hundred years, and in all that time no opera has put a woman doctor at its center. Allegra, the opera's protagonist, is believed to be the first female physician to lead an opera. She didn't get there through an institutional commission. She got there because Filloux decided to write her.
Filloux is a playwright and librettist whose three decades of work center on human rights, women's voices and art's capacity to bear witness. She conceived and developed the opera on her own, outside the commission system. Her previous opera, Orlando (libretto by Filloux, music by Olga Neuwirth), was the first opera by a woman composer and a woman librettist ever staged at the Vienna Staatsoper, and it won the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.
GRAMMY Award winner Brittany Renee, currently singing Bess in Porgy & Bess at the Metropolitan Opera, takes the title role of Allegra. Cellist Sarah Overton plays alongside her for all 70 minutes. Overton is a 2025 New Music USA Creative Fund Award winner who has shared stages and sessions with Alicia Keys, Lalah Hathaway and 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. Milan Eldridge is stage manager, Katie Rosin and Erin Kramer are press representatives, and Daniel Rosen handles social media.
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