The Heavenly City

is an improvised opera based around the life of the endlessly talented and curious visionary, prophetess, composer, scientist, abbess, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). The action centers on what she considered the greatest vision of her life. After years of asking for permission to build her own convent, she was struck down with a vision and lay in bed for weeks. In the midst of this agony, she has a vision of the wonders of God’s city, and receives the commandment to build up a convent in its image.

Hildegard von Bingen must communicate the exactness of the vision as God described it to the nine nuns. The members of her abby attempt to build the convent from the blueprint of Hildegard’s vision. The job is difficult, however, because her vision for the city — described in detail in Hildegard’s record Scivias — is filled with precise directions. This process is further complicated by the presence of a personification of Migraine. This character is a personification of the modern conception championed by Oliver Sacks in his book Migraine that Hildegard’s visions were the result of the sensual distortions of a migraine.

The opera is an attempt to recreate an event in history in real-time. The performers gathered together the morning of the performance with no knowledge of the subject or content of the opera. When they gathered that morning they received the blueprint of the opera and set to work with the immediacy of Hildegard when she suddenly received her divine directive.

Librettest

Luke Swenson

Music Director, Nun

Stuart Wheeler

Hildegard von Bingen

Lara Candland

Migraine

Emma Wilson

Nuns

Alicia Piper

Christian Asplund

Emily Brown