The Mount and NY's Grace Church Collaborate
Wharton's Roman Fever a New Opera
By: Mount - Mar 10, 2026
(New York, NY) — In a landmark collaboration, The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Home and Grace Church will celebrate the life and legacy of Edith Wharton in the very place of her baptism on Easter Day in 1862. The special evening, held Thursday, April 9 at 6:00 pm at Grace Church in New York (802 Broadway), features selections from an exhilarating new operatic adaptation of Wharton’s iconic short story Roman Fever, composed by Louis Karchin with a libretto by Joan Ross Sorkin. Natalie Johnsonius Neubert, President and CEO of Berkshire Opera Festival, will be moderating this event.
Transforming Wharton’s razor-sharp drama of friendship, jealousy, and betrayal into powerful operatic theater, the work brings the story’s simmering tensions and dark secrets vividly to life. The event offers audiences a rare behind-the-scenes experience, blending performance highlights with an intimate conversation about the creative process of adapting literature for the stage.
“It's been such a pleasure to work with Joan on this project,” says Louis Karchin. “When I first proposed the idea of Roman Fever as an opera, she seemed to sense immediately its dramatic potential, and in a short time, produced a libretto that beautifully captures the steady acceleration of tension inherent in the Wharton tale. Writing the music, with this libretto as a firm foundation, was easy.”
Soprano Kerrigan Bigelow will perform the role of Grace Ansley, alongside soprano Sofia Scattarreggia as Alida Slade, with pianist Luke Poeppel providing musical direction. Interwoven with the music, Karchin and Sorkin will lead an ongoing talkback, sharing insights into the artistic challenges and revelations of translating one of Wharton’s most celebrated stories into opera.
The evening invites audiences to encounter Wharton’s enduring voice anew—through music, song, and conversation—in the city where her story began.
“We’re delighted to partner with Grace Church to bring the spirit of The Mount—Edith Wharton’s home—to New York City, a place so formative to her life and work,” says Sarah Margolis-Pineo, program director at The Mount. “This exciting collaboration launches a new annual series that will bring The Mount’s programming to New York audiences.”
The event is free and open to the public; registration is recommended. A wine and cheese reception will follow the performance, and The Strand Bookstore will be on site with Edith Wharton titles.
Event Details
Adapting Wharton: The Operatic Reimagining of Roman Fever
Thursday, April 9, 6:00 pm
Grace Church
802 Broadway, New York City
Free admission | Registration required
For tickets and information visit EdithWharton.org or
BIO
The music of Louis Karchin (b. 1951, Philadelphia) has been heard throughout the world and has garnered praise for its “fearless eloquence” (The New Yorker), “bare-nerve intensity” (NY Times), and “coruscating beauty” (San Francisco Chronicle). Among his more than one hundred compositions are three operas and numerous works for chamber and solo combinations. Eleven portrait CDs are on Naxos, Bridge, New World, and New Focus labels, and recognition has come from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (three awards) and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. In 2000, he was one of 53 composers chosen by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to represent New York City at the turn of the Millennium, and in 2022, the Eastman School of Music, his undergraduate alma mater, awarded him a Centennial Medal for lifetime achievement in music. Mr. Karchin was twice a Leonard Bernstein Fellow in Composition at Tanglewood, where he was invited to return in 2011 to conduct his Chamber Symphony in Ozawa Hall. He is Professor of Music at New York University.
Joan Ross Sorkin is an opera librettist, musical bookwriter/lyricist, and playwright. In addition to Roman Fever with Louis Karchin, her opera libretti include: The Reef with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis; Guest Speaker, The Mount (“Wharton Revisited” Summer Lecture Series) and Edith Wharton Book Club (2024); Finalist, 2018 Pellicciotti Opera Prize; Act I presented in concert in Merkin Hall, NYC by Berkshire Opera Festival (2024); Libretto presented in Center for Contemporary Opera’s Prima Le Parole and Libretto Slam! Strange Fruit with Chandler Carter, developed at New York City Opera’s VOX 2003; commissioned/premiered by Long Leaf Opera (2007); presented in concert by Harlem School of the Arts in association with NYCity Opera (2009); materials archived at NY Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture. White Witch: A Monodrama for Contralto and Percussion with Brian Schober; premiered at Symphony Space (2014); Roulette concert (2016); produced by Salem State U. (2019). Jubilee with Randy Klein; commissioned by Margaret Walker Center, Jackson State U (2025); upcoming concerts at Yale and Jackson State (2026).
American German conductor and pianist Luke Poeppel is the Assistant Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony and a 2025 winner of a Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. He recently served as the Associate Conductor for Cerrone & Fleischmann’s opera In a Grove at the 2025 Prototype Festival, stepping in to conduct the full run of performances. In Summer 2025, Poeppel conducted In a Grove with Opera Saratoga and also served as the Assistant Conductor for Tosca and Sunday in the Park with George at the Glimmerglass Festival; he returns to Glimmerglass in 2026 for Fellow Travelers and Madama Butterfly. In the 25/26 season, beyond his duties in Kansas City, he debuts with the Grossman Ensemble and assists for Andrea Chénier at OperaDelaware. Poeppel has served as a cover conductor for orchestras and ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and Juilliard Opera.
Soprano Kerrigan Bigelow is a Masters student at The Juilliard School, where she studies with Amy Burton. Bigelow has performed as Gretel in Juilliard’s production of Hänsel und Gretel, Flora in The Turn of the Screw, with the New Series in Pierrot Lunaire, and at Merkin Hall as a winner of the Vocal Arts Honors Recital. Most recently, she made her AXIOM debut in Alice Tully Hall performing Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments. She has been a New England and Gulf Coast Regional finalist of the Laffont Competition, a grant recipient of the Gerda Lissner Art Song Competition, and an encouragement award winner with Opera Index.
Bigelow was a vocal fellow at Tanglewood in summer ‘25, performing a range of repertoire from La princesse in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortiléges to Reid’s When the World as You’ve Known it Doesn’t Exist. Upcoming, Bigelow will be an Apprentice Artist at the Santa Fe Opera. Following that, she will reprise the role of Gretel with the Sarasota Opera, making her debut with the company.
Lauded for their “crystal-clear high register” (Opera Today) and commanding interpretations, Italian-American soprano Sofia Scattarreggia is making an impact both on and off the stage. They have appeared in a wide range of soprano roles, including Blanche in Dialogues des Carmelites, Florencia in Florencia en el Amazonas (Catán), among others. Most recently, Dr. Scattarreggia covered the roles of Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and made debut with Annapolis Opera as Donna Anna in their fall production of Don Giovanni. Dr. Scattarreggia regularly performs challenging modern and post-tonal chamber and large-scale compositions. Upcoming projects include premiering Susan Kander’s opera Cary My Own Suitcase with Buffalo Opera Unlimited, and workshopping Tobias Picker’s new opera Safe Haven with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. They have with other acclaimed, active composers such as Sheila Silver, John Musto, and Libby Larsen. They are thrilled to be participating in the premiere of Louis Karchin’s Roman Feverinterpreting the role of Alida Slade.