Big musicals, premieres headed to Tucson for 2023/24 Season

Boris Karloff made for a scary Frankenstein’s monster in the 1931 black and white horror film.

But Frankenstein’s monster as a leading man in an opera?

We’re about to find out when Arizona Opera mounts the world premiere of composer/librettist Gregg Kallor’s Frankenstein to open its 2023/24 Season.

Frankenstein, which Arizona Opera workshopped in 2022 to positive response, is the company’s third world premiere, following 2017’s Riders of the Purple Sage and The Copper Queen, which was released as a feature-length film in fall 2021.

Frankenstein, based on the Mary Shelley novel, is one of four operas on tap for the season, which also includes a new community concert series in Tucson and a New Works Festival in Phoenix, where the bi-city company also presents operas.