‘The House on Mango Street’ Opera Premiering in NYC in 2025
Chicana author Sandra Cisneros wrote a libretto for the opera adaptation of her groundbreaking novel
Photo: Wikicommons/ Gage Skidmore
The beloved novel The House on Mango Street is being adapted into an opera with the help of the iconic author herself. Mexican-American author Sandra Cisneros recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the groundbreaking work this past September with TODAY, reminiscing on the impact and legacy of the coming-of-age novel. The book has become a fundamental part of school curricula across the United States—as well as subject to censorship and book banning—and sold over six million copies and translated into more than twenty languages. Now a bilingual House on Mango Street opera is set to have its premiere on July 2025 at the Glimmerglass Festival in New York with music by composer Derek Bermel and a libretto by Cisneros.
“There’s so much self-doubt when you come into a world distant from your upbringing. You feel you don’t belong. To have Derek launch me into this new genre has been such a gift for me because I wouldn’t have done it otherwise,” Cisneros shared in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.
Recently, the opera had its first unstaged performance by student singers at the University of Michigan’s Philharmonia Orchestra. It has been in the works for about seven years, with Bermel first reaching out to Cisneros in 2017 seeking permission to write a song cycle inspired by the book. The opera was workshopped during the 2024 season with audience previews at a private piano workshop back in June of this year and a public concert reading on August 12, 2024.
Cisneros’ novel centers on Esperanza Cordero, a 12-year-old Mexican American girl growing up in a Chicago neighborhood, as she enters adolescence and becomes aware of the realities of being of a patriarchal society and what it means to be a woman. As she gains awareness of the experiences of women like herself in life, she looks forward to leaving her neighborhood one day. Written in a series of vignettes, the novel, based on Cisneros’ childhood experiences, has been celebrated for decades for its representation of Latina womanhood and culture in literature. Despite being a challenged and banned book, The House on Mango Street has been awarded time and time again including the American Book Award.
The 69-year-old author has continued centering Latina voices since her debut, with works like Carmelo and Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories—the latter of which made her the first Chicana author to have her work published by a major publisher, Random House.
The House on Mango Street runs July 18 — Aug.16, 2025 at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, New York. Tickets will be available for purchase on Jan. 27.
