American Premiere of Tobias Picker and Aryeh Lev Stollman's Opera, Lili Elbe, in Santa Fe

Santa Fe Opera presents the American premiere of Tobias Picker and Aryeh Lev Stollman’s Lili Elbe on August 1. The new production is directed by James Robinson with scenic design by Allen Moyer, costume design by Marco Piemontese, lighting design by Marcus Doshi, projection and video design by Greg Emetaz, and choreography by Seán Curran. Roberto Kalb conducts the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and a first rate cast led by baritone (and the production's dramaturg) Lucia Lucas as Lili Elbe and soprano Sylvia D’Eramo as Gerda Wegener.

Named “Best World Premiere” at the 2024 Oper! Awards, Lili Elbe is an opera in two acts based on the life of Lili Elbe (1882–1931), who before transition was known as the acclaimed Danish landscape painter Einar Wegener. Lili was happily married to Gerda Wegener (1886–1940), herself an important artist considered the Danish pioneer of Art Deco and a sought-after portraitist.

As a pioneer of gender affirmation surgery, Lili endures the terrible pains and dangers of the more limited and experimental medical science of her time, ultimately dying from complications after a second surgery. During this journey both Lili and Gerda find temporary love in different quarters. Lili and Gerda, together at the end, declare their great and everlasting love for each other, which has never altered.

Lili Elbe, the first grand opera about a transgender person and composed for a trans singer in the title role, is the second opera by Picker and Stollman to premiere in the past five years, following Awakenings (2022). Their third operatic collaboration, Safe Haven, will have its world premiere performances at Opera Theatre of St. Louis next summer.

Learn more about Santa Fe Opera’s American premiere production of Lili Elbe, in repertory from August 1–27, 2026, and purchase tickets here.

Bright Shiny Things has released the world premiere recording of Tobias Picker and Aryeh Lev Stollman’s Lili Elbe today, July 31, 2026!

Modestas Pitrėnas conducts the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen and a cast led by baritone Lucia Lucas and soprano Sylvia D’Eramo who headlined the 2023 world premiere production at Theater St. Gallen. To learn more and order the album, click here.

About the Work

Lili Elbe (2023)
Opera in two acts
Music by Tobias Picker
Libretto (Eng) by Aryeh Lev Stollman

Roles:

LILI ELBE (historically known as Einar Wegener, pre-transition), Baritone

GERDA WEGENER, wife of Lili, Soprano

CLAUDE LEJEUNE, fiancé of Lili, Tenor

DANISH COUNTESS / DAGMAR, sister of Lili / MATRON, Soprano

ANNA LARSSEN BJØRNER, famous actress and friend of Gerda and Lili / ORPHEUS / MOTHER WEGENER / YOUNG WOMAN, Mezzo-soprano

PROFESSOR WARNEKROS, Director of Municipal Women’s Clinic in Dresden, Bass

ART CRITIC / MAJOR FERNANDO PORTA (Gerda's second husband) / CHRISTIAN X, King of Denmark, Bass

MARIUS WEGENER, Lili’s brother, Baritone

HÉLÈNE ALLATINI, wife of Eric Allatini, friends of Lili and Gerda / EURYDICE, Mezzo-soprano

ERIC ALLATINI, (husband of Hélène Allatini), Baritone 

SATB Chorus

Instrumentation: 2(2.pic).2(2.ca).3(3.bcl).2(2.cbsn)-4.2.2.btbn.1-timp.1perc(cym, glsp, crot, s.d, vib, xylo)-hp.elec keyboard-str

Duration: c. 120'

Synopsis: 

When the actress Anna Larsen of the Royal Danish Theater, who had just premiered the role of Orpheus in a new play, could not come for the last sitting of her portrait, the centerpiece of a new exhibition, she makes an unusual suggestion; that the artist, Gerda Wegener, ask Lili Elbe, (at that time known as Gerda’s husband, the artist Einar Wegener), to dress up and pose as Anna. At this sitting Lili is brought to a profound self-discovery, never before acknowledged. Like Orpheus compelled to look back at Eurydice, Lili can never again help turning away from her true self.

Lili, despite the support of Gerda, their friends Eric and Hélène, and Lili’s brother Marius, encounters hostility even from her own sister Dagmar. Finally, through the efforts of Hélène she is introduced to Professor Warnekos who agrees to operate on her at the Municipal Women’s Clinic in Dresden and help her fully live her life as a woman.

After her first surgery, through a dramatic encounter with the King of Denmark, Lili receives a royal decree confirming her gender identity and dissolving her marriage to Gerda. As a pioneer of gender affirmation surgery, Lili endures the terrible pains and dangers of the more limited and experimental medical science of her time, ultimately dying from complications after a second surgery.

During this journey both Lili and Gerda find temporary love in different quarters, Lili with the perfumer Claude LeJeune, and Gerda with the Italian Major Fernando Porta who will squander her money and leave her in poverty.
 Lili and Gerda, together at the end, declare their great and everlasting love for each other, which has never altered.

Meet the Creators

Tobias Picker, whose music, published exclusively by Schott Helicon Music Corporation, has been described as “displaying a distinctively soulful style that is one of the glories of the current musical scene,” by BBC Music Magazine and “our finest composer for the lyric stage,” by The Wall Street Journal, has drawn performances and commissions by the world’s leading musicians, orchestras, and opera houses. Picker’s operas have been commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera (Emmeline), the Los Angeles Opera (Fantastic Mr. Fox), the Dallas Opera (Thérèse Raquin), San Francisco Opera (Dolores Claiborne), and the Metropolitan Opera (An American Tragedy). His operas have gone on to be produced by New York City Opera, San Diego Opera, L’Opera de Montreal, Chicago Opera Theater, Covent Garden, Opera Holland Park, English Touring Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, and many other distinguished companies.

In 2015, Opera Theatre of St. Louis mounted a major new production of Picker’s Emmeline, that garnered universal acclaim as “a work of gripping emotional intensity and extraordinary musical expressivity,” (The Dallas Morning News); “one of the best operas written in the past 25 years,” (The Wall Street Journal); and “the greatest American opera of the 20th century,” (The St. Louis Post-Dispatch). In 2022, Opera Theater of St. Louis premeired Picker’s sixth opera, Awakenings, based on the novel by Oliver Sacks in 2022. Tobias Picker’s seventh opera, Lili Elbe, was premiered in 2023 at Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland and will receive its American premiere in August 2026 at the Santa Fe Opera. The work highlights the life of Lili Elbe (formerly known as the acclaimed Dutch landscape painter, Einar Wegener), one of the first persons to undergo gender affirmation surgery.

Mr. Picker’s Fantastic Mr. Fox won the 2020 Grammy for best opera recording on the BMOP/sound label, adding to the Picker discography on Naxos, Sony Classics, Virgin Classics, Angel, Chandos, Ondine, Albany, Wergo and Tzadik.

Picker served as Artistic Director of Tulsa Opera from 2016-2022, during which time he introduced the first openly transgender opera singer to the mainstage of an American opera company with Lucia Lucas cast in the role of Don Giovanni. To learn more, visit www.tobiaspicker.com and schott-music.com.

Aryeh Lev Stollman’s first novel, The Far Euphrates (Riverhead), is a winner of the Lambda Literary Award, an American Library Association Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Review Recommended Book of the Year, and a National Book Critics Circle Notable Book. The New York Times Book Review has called The Far Euphrates “radiant . . . remarkable both for Stollman’s eloquently understated prose and for the ease with which he constructs his artful plot.” The Far Euphrates has been translated into German (Kindler), Dutch (Meulenhoff), Italian (Marsilio), Portuguese (Betrand Brasil) and Hebrew (Sifriat Ma'ariv). 

The Boston Sunday Globe called his second novel, The Illuminated Soul (Riverhead), “an admirable novel of ideas . . . profound.” The Illuminated Soul has been translated into German (Droemer), Dutch (Meulenhoff), and Italian (Mondadori). Stollman is also the author of a story collection The Dialogues of Time and Entropy (Riverhead). His story "Lotte Returns!" was commissioned and broadcast by National Public Radio. His third novel, Malkat Yerushalayim – Queen of Jerusalem, was published by Aryeh Nir/Modan in 2020. Stollman has written the librettos for Awakenings, an opera composed by Tobias Picker, based on the book by Oliver Sacks, which was commissioned and premiered by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2022 and Picker's Lili Elbe, based on the life of the acclaimed Dutch landscape painter formerly known as Einar Wegener, which premiered in 2023 at the Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland.

Dr. Stollman is a neuroradiologist at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. To learn more about his writings, visit www.aryehlevstollman.com.