Hildegard von Bingen: From the Rhine Valley to the United States

A fascination, even fandom, has grown up around Hildegard von Bingen, who is considered one of the first composers whose name has survived until our time, unlike nearly all her peers in the early Middle Ages who have been lost to anonymity. Her modern rediscovery owes much to the recording industry—notably the now-iconic album A Feather on the Breath of God by Gothic Voices—but also to the celebrations marking the 900th anniversary of her birth in Germany in 1998, the opening that same year of a museum dedicated to her in Bingen, Margarethe von Trotta’s 2009 film Vision, and her proclamation as a Doctor of the Church by the Pope in 2012. Today, she is often regarded as a kind of proto-feminist, centuries before the emergence of Monique Wittig, Alice Schwarzer, or Gloria Steinem. Yet the German Benedictine abbess was also a mystic, writer, philosopher, theologian, and scientist. The latest addition to the long list of books, plays, documentaries, and musical works devoted to this medieval polymath, Hildegard is Sarah Kirkland Snider’s first opera. The music of the acclaimed 52-year-old composer has been performed by a wide range of leading artists and ensembles, from soprano Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet to the New York Philharmonic and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra.

From Apprehension to Success in Los Angeles, New York, and Aspen

“Some people take issue with whether or not to call her a feminist,” Snider said, “but I think just by virtue of her asserting her right to have a voice and write and compose, that was an incredibly audacious, strong, bold thing to do. So, I think that fully entitles her to feminist heroine status in my book.”

Hildegard was co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects, an organization devoted to the development of new operas, and the Aspen (Colo.) Music Festival, where it will receive its third presentation on July 31. Los Angeles Opera premiered it in November 2025, and that production was reprised in January at New York’s Prototype Festival.

The composer was concerned that if her debut opera was a failure, she might not get a second chance. “I felt tremendous pressure and fear and anxiety about whether I was doing it right and how it would all turn out,” she said. But she needn’t have worried. Hildegard can already be seen as a significant success, with the New York and Los Angeles performances drawing considerable praise from critics. “Snider touches on themes of feminism, shame, sexual violence, chronic illness, faith, eroticism and the healing power of art, but never ponderously or too explicitly,” wrote music critic Joshua Barone in the New York Times. “She has accomplished a marvel of abundant grace, a work of unforced, almost overwhelming resonance.”

In addition to those words of praise, the Music Critics Association of North America chose the work for its 2026 Award for Best New Opera, joining such previous winners as Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves and Jeanine Tesori’s Blue. “Remarkable timbral variety belies the small size of the accompanying ensemble, and throughout, the opera’s musical radiance illuminates Hildegard’s visceral connection with the divine,” the association’s awards committee said in a statement.

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