Celebrating Kurt Weill’s 125th Anniversary, VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert presents a single performance of his final work for the stage, the Broadway Opera, Lost in the Stars, with book and libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and poet Maxwell Anderson. The performance will take place at the Jeanne Lamon Hall/Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre on Saturday, March 21, 2026, at 3 pm. With this performance, VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert initiates its Resurgent Orchestral Project, with support from the Azrieli Foundation. Spread over three years, the grant will support orchestral performances beginning with this season’s Lost in the Stars, a Canadian Premiere. 

“It has been our goal for several years to reinstate this aspect of our programming”, says General Director Guillermo Silva-Marin, “and we are deeply grateful to the Azrieli Foundation. I’m delighted we have the opportunity to present this amazing work using Weill’s original orchestration and feel that the performance with an outstanding cast will be stirring and authentic”. The choral scenes - reminiscent of a Greek Chorus commenting on the action - will be in the hands of Robert Cooper, leading the renowned Opera in Concert Chorus. Joel Goodfellow will make his OIC conducting debut for this special event, which includes the Canadian debut of Leroy Davis as Stephen Kumalo, Ineza Mugisha as Irina and Ryan Allen as Speaker.

One of the most intriguing and original composers of the 20th Century, Kurt Weill was born in Dessau on March 2, 1900, and passed away in 1950, during the run of Lost in the Stars. He gained almost instant fame for his incendiary 1928 work, Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), written in collaboration with Bertolt Brecht. Wildly successful, Weill saw such works as “an opportunity to make opera the subject matter for an evening in the theatre”, part of what Weill saw as a lifelong process to “reform” opera for the modern stage.

Lost in the Stars premiered at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway in 1949 and ran for 281 performances. Todd Duncan, the originator of Porgy in Porgy and Bess, starred as the minister, and Inez Matthews sang Irina. With an unabashed social conscience, the opera addresses racial injustice and reconciliation in apartheid-era South Africa. The story follows Stephen Kumalo, a black minister whose son, Absalom, murders the son of a wealthy white man, James Jarvis. The narrative culminates in the unexpected friendship and reconciliation between the two fathers. The musical numbers in the work are extraordinarily diverse, with Weill blending operatic styles, spirituals, and blues. Titles include “The Hills of Ixopo”, “Thousands of Miles”, “Stay Well”, “Cry, the Beloved Country”, “Trouble Man” and the title song “Lost in the Stars”.

VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert is supported by the Azrieli Foundation, Jackman Foundation, RBC Foundation, McCarthy Tétrault Foundation, Classical 96.3 FM Radio, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council. Tickets are available through RCM Tickets by calling 416-408-0208 or visiting in person at 273 Bloor Street West.

For more details, please visit www.operainconcert.com.

Photo: Album cover of original cast recording of Lost in the Stars. © 1949 Decca.