Hildegard Synopsis
The year is 1147, and German Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen has begun transcribing her visions of God to obtain Papal imprimatur, at grave risk of ex-communication. She enlists a young convalescent, Richardis von Stade, to help illustrate her visions, and the two women quickly develop a transformative partnership that awakens them creatively, spiritually, and – much to the internal conflict of both women – romantically. In the meantime, a dispute with Hildegard’s superior costs her and her novitiate daughters the right to make music, underscoring Hildegard's fundamental lack of agency in the male-dominated monastic culture and jeopardizing her standing within the Church. As Hildegard anxiously awaits the Pope to declare her prophet or heretic, the love between Hildegard and Richardis becomes impossible to ignore, and an unforeseen crisis threatens both their hard-won accomplishments and the intimacy – in all its complexity and secrecy – that has become their salvation.
Atmospheric and evocative, immersive and intimate, Hildegard is a tale of two gifted women struggling to find their voices in a time and place where female voices weren’t meant to be heard. A story of love, faith, and self-knowledge, the opera is about the desire for connection – to wisdom, spirituality, and humanity – and the conflicts that compete therein.
Sarah chose to write the libretto herself, based on Hildegard's writings, so that she could develop the text and music simultaneously. For the past eight years, she's extensively researched Hildegard's life and work, monastic culture, and the broader political history of her time. She visited her abbeys and the town where she was born and has consulted with Hildegard scholar Barbara Newman.
The opera is currently a work-in-progress. It was workshopped at the Princeton University Atelier program in Fall 2023 at the Lewis Center for the Arts, co-taught by Snider and conductor Gabriel Crouch. It will workshop further at two other venues in 2024-2025, and premiere in Fall 2025, venue TBA.
