“Hysteria” – Molly Pease and Divya Maus

A rage-comic opera exploring women’s mental health through the lens of medicine, feminist fiction, reality TV, and the lives of the writers.

A Synchromy and Resonance Collective Co-Production

At the 1909 New York Symposium on Hysteria, the Neuroticist –a world-renowned psychoanalyst– presents four of his patients in a ground-breaking new lecture: Cherie, an unwed mother; Kate, a wife suffering from hallucinations; Ameeta, a mother anxious to marry off her adult son; and Mona, an architect struggling to appease her commissioners. Each is trapped in a scene that pushes her to ‘hysteria,’ a syndrome the Neuroticist aims to cure. However, a specter haunts his demonstrations, stoking the women’s fury and leading to a final confrontation—a contest of the gods, and the birthplace of our fury.

The development of Hysteria received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers: Discovery Grants program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.