HYSTERIA
Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, c. 1781
Created by composer and 2025 Opera America Discovery Award Grantee Molly Pease, and librettist Divya Maus, HYSTERIA is an evening-length chamber opera-in-progress tackling the evolution of gender and mental health narratives through the stories of five real, fictional, and mythological Heroines.
SYNOPSIS
In 1909, the Neuroticist – a world-renowned psychoanalyst – welcomes an audience of young progressive minds to his Symposium on Hysteria. He presents four female patients: Cherie, an unwed mother eager for marriage to a noncommittal partner; Kate, a young wife suffering from hallucinations; Ameeta, a mother anxious to find a match for her adult son; and Mona, an architect striving to create a life-changing work while appeasing her commissioners. Each is trapped in a scene designed to push her past her breaking point into what the Neuroticist calls ‘hysteria,’ a syndrome he aims to cure. However, his demonstrations are haunted by the Woman in the Wallpaper, a specter determined to stoke the women’s fury. The Neuroticist and the Woman in the Wallpaper battle in increasingly surrealist scenarios, leading to a final confrontation—a contest of the gods, and the birthplace of our fury.
HYSTERIA tackles the evolution of gender and mental health narratives by drawing from historical medical journals, early feminist fiction, modern reality television, and the personal experiences of the writers, inviting the spectator to laugh through their compassion and outrage.
Full Synopsis and Outline Document
Forces
HYSTERIA is written for six voices (SSMATB) and six instruments (violin, cello, electric guitar, percussion, electronics, and keyboard)
Below is a scene from HYSTERIA filmed as part of Overtone Industries' opera incubation project Original Vision. This scene, "Kate, the Young Wife", is based on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers: Discovery Grants program provides financial assistance to identify, support, and help develop the work of women composers writing for the operatic medium, raising their visibility, and promoting awareness of their compositions to the field. Funding for this program is provided by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Program for Commissioning Women in the Performing Arts.