Executive Overview
In the upper echelons of contemporary multidisciplinary performance, few creators operate at the intersection of neurological research, historical reclamation, and avant-garde sound design with the tenacity of Nwando Ebizie. This autumn, Mahogany Opera is set to cement a monumental milestone in its 2026 programming by presenting the world premiere of Ecstasy of the Virtues. Conceived, composed, and directed by Ebizie, this ambitious 90-minute opera draws a startling, deeply personal line between the visionary states of a twelfth-century mystic and the twenty-first-century neurological lived experience of its creator.
The production opens on September 25, 2026, at Stone Nest—the strikingly atmospheric converted Welsh Baptist chapel nestled in the heart of London’s West End—before running on September 26 and 27. Following its capital debut, the production embarks on an extensive national tour, partnering with premier regional arts organizations to bring experimental opera outside traditional metropolitan silos. The itinerary includes a high-profile stop at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds on October 3, staged in close partnership with Opera North, followed by a northern culmination at Barrow Town Hall on October 7, produced alongside Full of Noises as a centerpiece of Barrow Music Week.
At its core, Ecstasy of the Virtues is a contemporary transfiguration of Ordo Virtutum, the pioneering twelfth-century morality play penned by the Benedictine abbess, polymath, composer, and mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Ebizie has boldly re-engineered Hildegard’s allegorical pantheon of Virtues, transplanting them into modern guises that grapple with contemporary anxieties, systemic pressures, and the human condition. Yet, the work’s conceptual architecture runs far deeper than theatrical adaptation. Ebizie utilizes her own lived experience of visual snow syndrome—a neurological condition that manifests as persistent visual disturbances such as static, starbursts, auras, and halos—as an interpretive bridge to understand, channel, and sonically translate Hildegard’s legendary visionary trances.
Featuring a diverse, highly specialized ensemble of twelve performers that bridges classical vocalism, contemporary composition, and Deaf performance art, Ecstasy of the Virtues stands as a masterclass in inclusive, boundary-pushing artistic collaboration. As a central chapter in Ebizie’s multi-year, multi-platform Hildegard: Visions project, and one of five major world premieres slated by Mahogany Opera for the 2026 calendar year, this production promises to redefine how contemporary opera engages with historical legacy, neurological diversity, and the sensory limits of performance.
Detailed Chronology and Tour Itinerary
The rollout of Ecstasy of the Virtues has been meticulously planned to maximize the work’s cultural footprint across the United Kingdom, ensuring that urban avant-garde audiences and regional communities alike have access to its immersive sensory landscape.
London Premiere: Stone Nest (September 25–27, 2026)
The journey begins in the subterranean and neo-classical grandeur of Stone Nest on Shaftesbury Avenue. Known for hosting daring, site-specific, and genre-defying contemporary performance, the venue provides an ideal acoustic and architectural backdrop for Ebizie’s sonic world. The three-night London run on September 25, 26, and 27 will serve as the crucible for the work, introducing critics, industry leaders, and opera aficionados to the expansive world of the modern Virtues. The venue’s cavernous spatial dynamics will be heavily utilized by set and video designer Tzung-Hui Lee to wrap the audience in a shifting tapestry of light and shadow, mimicking the flickering static of visual snow.
Northern Migration: Howard Assembly Room, Leeds (October 3, 2026)
Following its London engagement, the production packs its sets and travels north to Yorkshire. On October 3, 2026, Ecstasy of the Virtues lands at the Howard Assembly Room, in strategic partnership with Opera North. This collaboration underscores Mahogany Opera’s commitment to forging institutional alliances that amplify ambitious contemporary works. The Howard Assembly Room—renowned for its intimate yet architecturally stunning Victorian design—offers a starkly different acoustic environment from Stone Nest, promising a more concentrated, chamber-like intensity for the complex vocal polyphony and electronic soundscapes designed by Ebizie.
Coastal Culmination: Barrow Town Hall (October 7, 2026)
The initial tour concludes on October 7, 2026, in Cumbria at Barrow Town Hall, presented in partnership with sound art organization Full of Noises as a flagship event for Barrow Music Week. By bringing an avant-garde opera deeply invested in rare neurological phenomena and medieval mysticism to a civic municipal space in Barrow-in-Furness, the creative team continues Mahogany Opera’s mission of decentralizing high art. This performance highlights the production’s adaptability and its core philosophy: that profound artistic exploration should not be bound exclusively to the cultural capitals of London and Leeds, but shared across diverse geographical and social landscapes.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Intersection of History, Neurology, and Art
To fully appreciate the weight of Ecstasy of the Virtues, one must examine the dense web of historical theology, modern medical science, and organizational strategy that supports it.
The Hildegardian Blueprint and Visual Snow Syndrome
Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179) remains one of the most towering figures of the high Middle Ages. Beyond her prodigious output as a writer, naturalist, and composer of ethereal monophonic chants, she was defined by her visiones—luminous, blinding experiences of divine light that she began experiencing at the age of three. Modern neurologists and historians have long debated the physical etiology of Hildegard’s visions, with theories ranging from migraine aura with scintillating scotoma to occipital epilepsy.
Nwando Ebizie approaches these historical accounts not through a detached clinical lens, but through empathetic, autobiographical resonance. Ebizie lives with visual snow syndrome, a chronic neurological condition that permanently alters how the brain processes visual information. By experiencing the world through a constant filter of visual static, afterimages, and luminous halos, Ebizie found a startling parallel in Hildegard’s descriptions of the "Umbra viventis lucis" (the shadow of the living light). In Ecstasy of the Virtues, this neurological convergence becomes a compositional tool. The music, visual projections, and staging are designed to externalize these internal visual disturbances, translating neurological anomalies into a shared theatrical language.
[Hildegard von Bingen (12th Century)]
│ (Visions of "Living Light")
▼
[Neurological Parallels] ◄─── [Nwando Ebizie (Visual Snow Syndrome)]
│
▼
[Ecstasy of the Virtues (90-Minute Opera)]
│
├─► Modern Allegorical Virtues
├─► Immersive Spatial Sound & Video
└─► Inclusive Multidisciplinary EnsembleThe Creative Engine: Mahogany Opera’s 2026 Season
The production does not exist in a vacuum; it is a premier pillar of Mahogany Opera’s 2026 strategic rollout. As one of the UK’s leading companies dedicated to the creation and development of new opera, Mahogany is staging five world premieres across the year, staking a definitive claim on the future direction of the art form. Ecstasy of the Virtues also represents a major milestone within Ebizie’s broader, long-term artistic umbrella, the Hildegard: Visions project, which spans immersive installations, musical compositions, and participatory performances examining the boundaries of human perception.
The Ensemble and Production Apparatus
Bringing a 90-minute multidisciplinary opera to life requires an extraordinary assembly of talent. The cast of twelve performers features a curated mix of vocal powerhouses and boundary-pushing performance artists. Notably, the production includes Deaf performance artist Chisato Minamimura, ensuring that the work incorporates non-auditory dimensions of physical storytelling and visual translation. Joining Minamimura is an exceptional roster of vocalists and musician-performers, including composer and vocalist Laura Bowler, Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian, Grace Nyandoro, Sara Amini, and Yfat Soul Zisso.
Behind the scenes, the creative team reads as a roll call of contemporary design innovators:
- Lead Artist, Composer, and Director: Nwando Ebizie
- Associate Director: Jennifer Muteteli White
- Set and Video Designer: Tzung-Hui Lee
- Choreographer: Krystal Lowe
- Costume Designer: Polly Simon
This multidisciplinary team ensures that Ecstasy of the Virtues operates on multiple sensory tiers simultaneously, blending vocal polyphony, electronic manipulation, sculptural set design, kinetic movement, and dynamic video mapping.
Official Statements and Artistic Vision
The philosophical underpinnings of the opera were articulated by Nwando Ebizie in an official press release surrounding the announcement of the tour dates. Explaining her desire to merge medieval mysticism with contemporary neurological reality, Ebizie noted the transformative potential of the performance space:
"I want to open a doorway into that alternate reality: a liminal space where the Soul meets her shadow self, where the pain of being human is transformed into the beauty of being human."
This quote captures the central dramatic tension of the piece. By transposing Hildegard’s Ordo Virtutum—in which the Soul is tempted by the Devil and rescued by the personified Virtues (Humility, Chastity, Victory, Patience, and others)—into a twenty-first-century context, Ebizie forces audiences to confront how modern society pathologizes internal struggles. The "shadow self" is no longer just a theological construct of sin and redemption, but a psychological and neurological reality of living with conditions that deviate from the neurotypical baseline.
Critics and institutional partners have similarly hailed the production as a vital intervention in contemporary music-theatre. Representatives from Mahogany Opera have emphasized that Ebizie’s vision exemplifies the company’s core mission: breaking down the rigid boundaries of traditional opera houses to champion visionary artists who reflect the complex, diverse tapestry of modern British society. By pairing a twelfth-century female mystic with a Black British multidisciplinary artist navigating visual snow syndrome, the production creates a trans-historical dialogue across eight centuries of human consciousness.
Future Outlook
As the curtain rises at Stone Nest on September 25, 2026, Ecstasy of the Virtues will step into the spotlight as one of the most conceptually rigorous and fiercely original opera productions of the decade. Its trajectory—from the historic cloisters of medieval theology to the avant-garde performance hubs of London, the industrial grandeur of Leeds, and the coastal civic pride of Barrow—illustrates a sustainable, ambitious model for touring new work in the UK.
Looking beyond the October 2026 tour close, the ripple effects of Ecstasy of the Virtues are expected to resonate heavily within academic, medical-humanities, and contemporary music circles. By validating neurological conditions like visual snow syndrome through the high-art apparatus of opera, Ebizie is pioneering a new subgenre of neurodivergent-led performance art. Furthermore, the success of the production will serve as a bellwether for Mahogany Opera’s 2026 slate, proving that audiences are hungry for works that refuse to compartmentalize history, science, spirituality, and radical artistic expression.
As the multi-year Hildegard: Visions project continues to evolve, Ecstasy of the Virtues stands as its blazing, luminous centerpiece—a testament to the enduring power of visionary art to make the invisible visible, and to transform the burdens of human perception into transcendent beauty.
