*Complications in Sue,* Feb 6, 2026

I saw a brand new opera, *Complications In Sue,* at Opera Philadelphia on Feb 7, 2026.

There are three bold-face names involved in this project: Anthony Roth Costanzo, Michael R. Jackson, and Justin Vivian Bond.

CONSTANZO

Anthony Roth Costanzo is a hot shot young counter tenor, an opera singer with world wide cred. Not quite A list but a strong B plus - - which is impressive, he had to climb over the dead bodies of hundreds of other counter tenors to get where he is, kudos to him. I first heard him in *The Enchanted Island* at the Met and described his singing as "vocal velvet." He's an exceptional singer.

He's always had interest in the opera business outside of singing and he became general director of Opera Philadelphia in June 2024. One of his most innovative initiatives was selling all tickets to all performances for $11 or whatever you want to pay. I've never heard of anything like that at a major classical music organization. I chose to pay $50 for my ticket as a show of support.

JACKSON

Michael R. Jackson is primarily a writer of musicals. He won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his musical *A Strange Loop,* which I saw in 2022. It won the Tony for Best Musical and was the most challenging Broadway musical I've ever seen. He examined racism in such a scalding and shocking way, it was astonishing. Also great theatre. I saw his next two musicals, *White Girl in Danger* and *Teeth,* and loved them both. I was intrigued to hear that he had written the libretto for an opera in Philadelphia and even more intrigued when I heard that the leading role was being played by Justin Vivian Bond.

BOND

Justin Vivian Bond is a cabaret singer and actor. She hit the scene as the Kiki half of Kiki and Herb, a duo with Kenny Mellman, a parody (or satire, or send-up, or valentine?) of a washed-up cabaret duo. I saw Kiki and Herb not long after moving to New York, sometime around 2004, and was blown away by their mixture of show biz glamour, world-weary grandeur, and perplexing covers of power ballads from the 70s and 80s. They were like a vaudeville act from the 20s, cryogenically frozen and revived in 1974.

Bond became a solo artist in the mid-aughts. I've seen her at Joe's Pub and other venues five or six times, always a delight, always with thoughtful programming and wry observations on this crazy world.

I saw Bond and Costanzo perform together in Sept 2021, a show called *Only an Octave Apart,* built around a song by that name written for a show starring Carol Burnett and Beverly Sills (can you even stand it). They stayed in touch and Bond called Costanzo when he took the Opera Philadelphia job and said he was kind of interested in exploring the world of opera, could he keep her in mind. Separately Michael R. Jackson called up Costanzo around the same time and said he was interested in writing the libretto for an opera. Could he keep him in mind.

Is this what they call "kismet"? Costanzo was looking ahead to Opera Philadelphia's 50th anniversary season in 2025-26 and thought an opera commission would be a great way to celebrate. But just over a year is not long enough to produce a new work - - a new opera typically takes four years to put together from the green light to curtain up, light the lights.

Costanzo had the brilliant idea to have Jackson write the piece in ten scenes and commission ten composers to each write one scene, approximately eight to ten minutes each. I imagine you could ask them to do that in six months. Jackson wrote the libretto and Costanzo chose the ten composers, then chose which scene each of them would write, based on their strengths. They strategically withheld information from the composers - - they were all given a very brief description of the entire scenario and the full text of only their scene. They didn't have the text for any of the other scenes, they didn't want them to have too much knowledge of what other people were doing. Costanzo compared this to the surrealist parlor game called The Exquisite Corpse, in which an artist would draw a head on the top of a piece of paper fold it, and pass it to the next artist, who would draw the torso, fold it, pass it to another artist, etc. The final drawing would be done by a number of artists and the separate sections would have no connection to each other. I know this as a text-based game in which you build off the last sentence of what someone else wrote.

I was familiar with only three of the ten composers. Missy Mazzoli has written three well-received operas, most notably *Breaking the Waves,* based on the Lars Von Trier movie. Her opera *Lincoln in the Bardo* will have its Met premiere in 2026. I know Dan Schlosberg as the resident arrangement genius of Heartbeat Opera. He's the guy who came up with the idea of retooling *Salome* for eight clarinet players and two percussionists. This was my first time hearing his own music, rather than an arrangement of someone else's music. And I've seen two and a half operas by Nico Muhly - - I saw *Two Boys* and *Marnie* at the Met. The half opera was *Dark Sisters* at Gotham Chamber Opera. I left that one at intermission, it was too damn boring. My litmus test is this: if I'd rather be home watching *Law and Order,* I'm going home.

There are a few bonuses to having music by ten composers rather than one. First, you get to hear ten composers in one night, something you never get to do at the opera. Second, the music is constantly changing, you never have the opportunity to get tired of the music. Even if you're not wild for it, you know it's going to move on to something else in a few minutes. Though I should say that four out of the ten scenes had a whiff of *Nixon of China* at some point in the music. I love that opera so I decided that was a good thing. Lastly, I felt like all ten composers were really juiced up in their one scene. They held nothing back, they didn't have to extend their ideas on a grand scale, they could lay it all out there and pack a real punch.

The opera follows the character Sue through each decade of her life, from birth to her death at age 99. Bond played Sue. She was onstage much of the time but mostly silent. She talked a fair amount and only sang for a brief sequence in scene 8. The opera also featured four opera singers: soprano Kiera Duffy, mezzo Imara Miles, tenor Nicky Spence, and bass-baritone Nicholas Newton. There were also seven actors who had non-speaking, non-singing roles. It's hard to explain what they did but they added to the drama and rhythm of the piece.

Let me explain something about the mezzo role in the quartet. It was meant to have been sung by Rehanna Thelwell but she got some kind of illness in the days leading up to the premiere so they had her performing the role onstage and lip-synching to the singing of her cover, Imara Miles, who was singing seated in front of a music stand at a box on the left, more or less oug of view. All of the singers had body mics so there was no disconnect about the voice not coming from the stage. I hear that many people in the audience didn't even notice that the woman onstage wasn't singing. From my perspectve, the staging wasn't so elaborate so why not just have the cover perform the role and tell the sicko to stay home and take some echinacea? Isn't that more fair to the cover, and in a sense to the audience?

It was directed by Raja Feather Kelly and Zack Winokur and conducted by Caren Levine, all of them attacking their job with style and tenacity. The spare but gorgeous set design was by Krit Robinson and Mx. Bond's costumes were by JW Anderson, who became creative director of Dior in 2025. Bond wore a number of fetching frocks, the most divine being the black cocktail dress in which Sue died. This dress gave me a Proustian rush of Chanel's designs for *Last Year at Marienbad,* an elegant and impenetrable French movie 1961. Watch it if you dare.

Here's a cute picture of the proscenium before the show started:

Let me give you a guided tour through the show.

Scene One: the birth of Sue

Music by Errollyn Wallen (written for all four singers, the mezzo most prominent)

Newborn Sue is greeted by Death, who promises that they'll meet again.

The music was ominous and hypnotic, it set the tone in an intriguing way. Bond made her entrance through the audience in a white dress and feathered headdress, talking to people and being the life of the party.

Scene Two: Sue at 10

Music by Missy Mazzoli (soprano and bass-baritone)

Santa Claus complains to Mrs. Claus that he's irrelevant and being taken over by Amazon. Mrs. Claus tells him to look at 10-year-old Sue, who believes in him against all odds.

This was one of my favorite scenes, it was a hoot. It's not often you hear an opera audience laugh with real gusto. To quote Laurie Anderson (on the subject of John Cage), "I trust laughter more than a lot of things."

Scene Three: Sue at 20

Music by Andy Akiho (soprano and tenor)

Sue is in college and revered and torn apart by two classmates who hate her and want to be her.

This was amusing and maybe deliberately annoying...?

Scene Four: Sue in her 30s

Music by Nathalie Joachim (mezzo)

A newscaster reports from Sue's brain. Sue has a serious boyfriend named Roger. Her feelings towards him are complicated.

Another standout, the music felt like it deepened and illuminated the text and drama in a way that didn't happen as effectively in the other scenes.

I think Bond had a little monologue in this scene, giving trigger warnings to the audience in her guise of the grand acerbic diva (or is it a guise?). The one I remember: "Ideation of suicide. Ha, not likely. I don't think about suicide, I drive OTHER PEOPLE to suicide."

Scene Five: Sue in her 40s

Music by Dan Schlosberg (bass-baritone)

Roger calls Sue, responding to a call she made to him. He's moved on but still thinks about her.

This was a tour de force for the singer, a real barn-burner.

Scene Six: Sue in her 50s

Music by Cecile McLorin Salvant (soprano, mezzo, and tenor)

Sue is harrassed by her algorithm. They complain that she's not spending enough time on her phone.

I thought this was a little too cutesie. I think the problem was the text, not the music. I think Bond had her improvised monologue after this scene (more about that in a bit).

Scene Seven: Sue in her 60s

Music by Alastair Coleman (tenor)

Sue's neighbor calls her on the phone and shares too much personal info with her.

Another tour de force, the audience really responded to this one and scene five. It's exciting to hear a singer tear into a demanding piece of writing.

Scene Eight: Sue in her 70s

Music by Kamala Sankaram (soprano)

Sue is visited by her 10-year-old self, giving her a guided tour through her life so far.

This was sweet, the most touching moment in the opera. Bond did her one bit of singing in this scene. The music was written thoughfully for her music abilities, it sounded more like a song than like an aria.

Scene Nine: Sue in her 80s

Music by Rene Orth (mezzo and bass-baritone)

Sue is living in a nursing home and two other residents talk about the downside of being old.

This scene had a snare drum playing a never-changing rhythm that ripped off "Bolero." It represented Death. The camaraderie between the two characters was charming and nicely conveyed in the music.

Scene Ten: Sue dying at 99

Music by Nico Muhly (all four singers)

Death comes back for Sue. They give her a birthday cake and she dies peacefully.

I think they chose Muhly for the final scene because he's probably the most seasoned of the ten composers. It had a harmonic and textural complexity unlike the rest of the score, a perfect ending.

As I said I've seen Bond many times in a cabaret setting and those performances are often loose and maybe intentionally under-prepared. You're not convinced the she always knows what she's doing and that's part of the excitement of her shows, you genuinely don't know what to expect because you're not sure SHE knows.

Then I saw Bond in that show with Costanzo (*Only an Octave Apart*) and there was a polish and finesse in their performance that I hadn't seen before. *Complications in Sue* went even deeper in that direction, Bond showed a great deal of grace and subtlety. I'd love to see more of that from her.

But there was a great deal of caustic rage in what many people will most remember about the show! Bond had an improvised rant built into the show, between scenes. It was something different every night but (we were told) often had a political theme and contained a lot of HBO language. I'll paraphrase:

"I met Jane Fonda years ago. It was at the after party opening night of Carrie Fisher's show *Wishful Drinking.* I went over to talk to Jane and she said, 'Are you transgender?' and I said, 'Yes I am.' She asked me if I knew Caitlyn Jenner and I said no, I knew of her but I'd never met her. And Jane said that Caitlyn told her that transwomen are the real revolutionaries because they are giving up penis privilege while holding onto the penis. She asked if I agreed with that. I said, 'I have to sit down.'

"I did an opera at the Vienna Statsoper years ago. I said I was a cabaret artist and used to doing my own thing, not always doing what other people tell me to do, so they gave me a moment in the show when I could say what I wanted. They printed it in the score: OWN TEXT. One night I was angry and I said, 'F-ck the patriarchy.' Some young women on the crew thanked me for saying that but the Viennese critics thought it was trite and banal.

"They gave me an OWN TEXT moment in this show, which you're hearing right now. And I'm gonna be more specific. I'm gonna say F-ck Donald Trump. F-ck his Cabinet. F-ck Congress. F-ck the Supreme Court. F-ck everyone who is misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic. And f-ck ICE! And if you don't think I have a right to stand on the stage and say these things, well then f-ck YOU."

The audience went nuts throughout this rant, cheering and applauding, clearly the grand majority of the audience agreed with her. The most remarkable thing about this rant is that it felt like it was at one with the show surrounding it. It didn't disrupt, it emerged artfully out of the scene before and led just as smoothly into the scene after. That's a pretty neat trick.

There are currently no plans for other companies to stage this piece but I think it could easily be done elsewhere and with other stars, it doesn't have to be Bond. I also hope that other companies will imitate this idea and do their own multi-composer commissions.