As a wheelchair user with Cerebral Palsy (CP), who now runs New York City’s first disability affirmative opera company – Opera Praktikos – I can say that I became aware of my disability, around the same time I encountered my first opera. In fact, shortly after I heard my first opera while in rehab, after major back surgery, I was given my first power wheelchair. In a way, my understanding of opera has grown alongside my understanding of CP. As such I was thrilled to learn that the Metropolitan Opera – which has a reputation of being the arbiter of trends in the American opera scene – planned a 2025-2026 season of operas which feature representations of various aspects of the disability experience. These works run the gamut from the canonical to the new. And they also feature ever more nuanced portrayals of disability.
La Sonnambula: A Village Chooses to Believe in Ghosts
Let’s begin with La Sonnambula, The Sleepwalker. At first glance, this piece has the stereo typically goofy opera plot. It takes place in a rural village where no one has ever heard of sleepwalking. This village also has the distinction of being haunted by a mysterious ghostly figure of a woman in white, who roams the village every night after dark. Scandals soon erupt when Amina is found in another man’s bed on the eve of her wedding, with no idea how she got there. However, it’s clear to the audience that the village is not haunted, rather it is Amina, who sleepwalks through the village. Unfortunately, Amina spends the rest of the opera having to convince everyone that she’s innocent. It’s only when she sleepwalks publicly and risks her life walking over a dangerous bridge in the process, that everyone finally sees the truth that Amina is disabled. In this way, La Sonnambula is a sharp commentary on ableism. In this work we see how dangerous it can be when the wider community does not believe people with disabilities.
The fact that the villagers would sooner believe in a ghost than in sleepwalking ties the representation of disability in La Sonnambula with stories of monsters and ghosts, which are often disability coded. While there are many operas which feature the leading lady having major public episodes of mental illness, here, the public display of disability is unique, because it is the only way the townspeople believe Amina is disabled. Even though people from outside the village recognize she is a sleepwalker they cannot convince everyone until she sleepwalks publicly. Therefore, at its heart La Sonnambula is a multifaceted examination of ableism.
Porgy and Bess: Love at the Margins of Community
Porgy and Bess is one of the most famous operas ever written. Its depiction of disability moves us out of horror into reality. Although it features many tropes such as the outdated “happy-go-lucky” stereotype of disabled characters – it also depicts a disabled couple with a wide range of disabilities. Porgy is a physically disabled beggar, and his lover Bess, is a drug addicted prostitute. Therefore, Porgy and Bess show us a disabled couple and how people with visible disabilities can be in relationship with one another and in relationship with the community at large. However, no matter how much the audience may sympathize with Porgy and Bess, they are always depicted as separate from the rest of the community.
El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego: Disability and Identity
El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego is a new opera based on disability icon Frida Kahlo. The work was composed by deaf composer Gabriela Lena Frank, making it one of the few operas in the Met repertoire written by an openly disabled composer. The opera takes place in Mexico during the Day of the Dead and depicts Frida’s journey back to the realm of the living, to paint one last time – hopefully without the physical pain caused by her disability. However, by the end of the opera, she learns that she cannot paint without feeling the pain she had when she was alive. Therefore, this opera depicts disability as crucial to one’s identity, and crucial to the legacy that people with disabilities leave behind.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: The Pinnacle of Representation
Lastly the season opened with a new opera based on the novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The opera tells the epic story of two Jewish cousins living in America during World War II who create comic books to help fuel the American war effort. In this opera, one of the main characters, Sam Clay, wears a leg brace. However, his visible physical disability has no major impact on the story being told. He is simply a character with a disability. This brings the opera in line with recent animated movies like Wish and Luca. Which feature characters with visible physical disabilities who simply go about their daily lives being disabled. This is the pinnacle of disability representation in any art form.
An Evolving Stage
When these four operas are taken into consideration, we can see a clearly defined evolution of disability representation. The Met should be applauded for what they have done this season. And let’s hope they continue this work in the future.
Gregory Moomjy is the founder of Opera Praktikos, a New York City-based nonprofit disability-forward opera company dedicated to artistic excellence and community building.