Opera Philadelphia season includes the new festival O17

by Peter Dobrin, CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC | Columnist

Published Feb. 26, 2017, 6:00 a.m. ET

Opera Philadelphia's newly announced 2017-18 season happens in two parts: an ambitious fall festival called O17, with 25 performances over the course of 12 days -- including world premiere operas about the MOVE bombing and Albert Barnes -- and a two-production spring lineup.

O17 Festival Schedule

• Elizabeth Cree, with music by Kevin Puts and a libretto by Mark Campbell, is given its world premiere Sept. 14-23 at the Perelman Theater. Based on Peter Ackroyd's The Trial of Elizabeth Cree. Corrado Rovaris conducts.

• A world premiere of We Shall Not Be Moved, music by Daniel Bernard Roumain and libretto by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, is set for Sept. 16-24 at the Wilma Theater. Characters include a group of teens and ghosts at the Osage Avenue home on the site of the MOVE bombing. Bill T. Jones is director, choreographer, and dramaturge. The work is a mélange of spoken word, contemporary movement, video projection, classical, R&B, and jazz singing.

• "War Stories" is a double bill of old and new: Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Claudio Monteverdi and I Have No Stories to Tell You by Lembit Beecher with a libretto by Hannah Moscovitch, Sept. 16-23 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gary Thor Wedow conducts, with direction by Robin Guarino.

• The Wake World, with music and libretto by David Hertzberg, receives its world premiere Sept. 18-25 at the Barnes Foundation. It involves the work of both Albert C. Barnes and British poet, magician, and occultist Aleister Crowley. Directed by R.B. Schlather.

• Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky appears in recital Sept. 17 and in a master class Sept. 18 at the Perelman Theater.

Spring Season

• Bizet's Carmen is to be performed April 27-May 6 at the Academy of Music.