Streetcar Named Desire
At Boston Lyric Opera
By: BLO - Oct 21, 2026
Next up in its 50th Season, Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) presents André Previn’s acclaimed opera adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre. A co-production with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, STREETCAR plays three performances November 5-8. Coupled with a libretto by Philip Littell, Previn’s lyrical score brings new dimension to Williams’s iconic drama, illuminating through music the story’s volatile tensions between fantasy and reality, desire and destruction.
The production is conducted by Daniela Candillari (l.) – who led the score for BLO’s national, award- winning 2022 film of Ana Sokolovi?’s “Svadba” and makes her BLO stage debut here. STREETCAR is directed by New Hampshire native Patricia Racette (r.), an acclaimed soprano with a longstanding connection to BLO. Early in her career, Racette sang four roles in the company’s 1992 production of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. Reviewer Richard Dyer said Racette “flooded the Emerson Majestic with gloriously full lyric-soprano tone…she will certainly have a successful career.”
THE STORY. Set in a sweltering New Orleans, the opera follows the magnetic, self-deluded Blanche DuBois, who leaves her Mississippi home and seeks shelter with sister Stella and Stella’s husband Stanley. Clinging to a romanticized past, Blanche finds herself at odds with the domineering Stanley, whose brutal realism clashes with her world view. Cruelty, desire, illusion and fear of change draw tensions between the characters, sending everyone involved careening toward destruction.
Racette says that while the opera is inspired by one of the great works in the American theater canon, she wants operagoers to find a new perspective with this staging. “I want the audience to have a seat in Blanche’s mind,” she says, “to feel the heat, the claustrophobia, and the emotional intensity with which the story unfolds. It helps that André Previn’s score is magnificent...it has a little bit of everything, from jazz to classical shadings and traditional New Orleans music.”
CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM. Brittany Renee makes her BLO debut as Blanche DuBois. Thomas Glass (also in his BLO debut) is Stanley Kowalski. The full cast includes: Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist alum Angela Yam as Stella Kowalski; Brenton Ryan as Mitch; Erica Brookhyser, who made her professional debut at BLO in 2006, returning as Eunice Hubbell; East Boston native and 2026/27 Emerging Artist Juliette Kaoudji as the Flower Seller; Emerging Artist alum and Daughter of the Regiment scene-stealer Neal Ferreira as Steve Hubbell; current BLO Emerging Artist Suowei Wu as the Young Collector; Jessica Jacobs as the Nurse; Boston native David J. Castillo, who makes his BLO mainstage debut as The Doctor; and Dallas-born, 2026/27 Emerging Artist Ricky Lee Owens, Jr. as Pablo. Full cast and crew info here.
In addition to Racette and Candillari, the creative team includes Set Designer Andrew Boyce, Costume Designer Amanda Gladu, Lighting Designer Eric Southern, Projection Designer Kylee Loera, Fight Director/Intimacy Coordinator Angie Jepson, and Associate Stage Director Alexandra Dietrich, a current BLO Emerging Artist. Full creative team info here.
HISTORY OF “STREETCAR” IN MASSACHUSETTS. The Bay State played prominently in the development of Tennessee Williams’s 1947 play, on which this opera is based. Williams lived in an oceanside cottage near Provincetown that summer, famously receiving a visit from actor Marlon Brando, who read the part of Stanley Kowalski and went on to star in the play’s premiere. It was in that cottage where Williams says he wrote Blanche’s famous exit line, “...I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
The pre-Broadway run of STREETCAR played two weeks at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre, in November 1947, where Williams, Brando, Jessica Tandy (who starred as Blanche) and director Elia Kazan refined the play after its New Haven tryout. The Boston run shaped one of America’s most celebrated dramas and the enduring legacy of a Pulitzer Prize-winner that also earned Tony and Olivier Awards.
SCHEDULE AND TICKETS. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE is sung in English with English supertitles. Performances are Thu., Nov. 5 at 7:30 pm, Fri., Nov. 6 at 7:30 pm and Sun., Nov 8 at 3 pm. All performances are at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont Street in Boston. Tickets start at $40 and are available at blo.org/streetcar.