Talented creative teams. Powerful stories. All-original opera. WNO’s acclaimed commissioning program for contemporary American opera enters its 11th exciting season—showing how short opera can move and inspire us!

“A Way Forward” follows a Mexican family of three generations who grapple with polarized ideas on how to save their business from the threat of foreclosure. The stress of the situation brings out hidden family dynamics that reveal both their flaws and passion. Will they be able to get through their crisis?

On the verge of a solitary retirement, wigmaker Esther knows everything there is to know about her craft: you start by laying a lace foundation, then match the client’s hair with a frontal and stitch in the wefts by hand. And yet she doesn’t know how to save her studio, preserve the dying art, or find meaning in her life’s work. But when an eye-catching young stranger shows up unannounced at her door, an unexpected alliance emerges.

Eons after humans have gone extinct, a strange, chemically supercharged world remains. Perhaps all a survivor can do is try and navigate their surroundings, one toxic blast at a time. As the environmental legacy of the human species gets heftier, allow a pair of musically inclined polyfluoroalkyl substances and a hardy microorganism to paint a picture of a possible future Earth. Forever is a tragicomic opera about figuring out one’s place on a changing planet.