/terenceblanchard_hero.jpg?format=auto&fit=crop&w=226&h=140&crop=focalpoint&fp-y=0&auto=format&auto=format)
/03-cosi/_dsc0996_pr.jpg?format=auto&fit=crop&w=345&h=200&auto=format)
/terenceblanchard_hero.jpg?format=auto&fit=crop&w=372&h=380&crop=focalpoint&fp-y=0&auto=format&auto=format)
Carla Lucero
From: Los Angeles, California. LA Opera: composer and librettist of Las tres mujeres de Jerusalén (2022, 2025).
Carla Lucero studied composition at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) with composers Rand Steiger, Morton Subotnick and Leonard Rosenman.
Her first opera, WUORNOS, about Aileen Wuornos, America’s first female serial killer, premiered in San Francisco in 2001, winning “10 Best of Stage” from The Advocate and Out magazines.
Her second opera, Juana, with co-librettist and author Alicia Gaspar de Alba, premiered in 2019 with Opera UCLA, winning a place in the “12 Best of Fall” by the Los Angeles Times. An opera in Spanish about 17th-century Mexican nun and icon Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Juana had its second performance in New York in 2022 with dell’Arte Opera Ensemble. A third production is being discussed for 2026 in Los Angeles. Juana is based on the award-winning book by Gaspar de Alba, Sor Juana’s Second Dream.
Her third opera, Las tres mujeres de Jerusalén (The Three Women of Jerusalem), a Spanish-language opera based on the Passion as seen through the eyes of the three women Jesus meets at the eighth station of the cross, was commissioned by LA Opera and premiered in 2022. It will be remounted by the company in 2025.
Lucero’s fourth opera, t o u c h, is about human rights activist Helen Keller. The libretto was co-written with Marianna Mott Newirth and premiered in 2024 with Opera Birmingham.
¡Chicanísima!, Lucero’s fifth opera, also premiered in 2024 at BRAVA Theater in San Francisco. It is about Chicana icon Olga Talamante and was commissioned and performed by Quinteto Latino. A Latin American production is in the works for 2025 with Mexican opera company Escenia Ensamble.
She is currently commissioned to create three operas: Hello, Star with librettist Jarrod Lee, commissioned by Opera Paralléle and premiering in 2025 in San Francisco; The Tower of Babel, a second commission by LA Opera, premiering in 2026; and Tea with librettist Velina Hasu Houston, commissioned by Hawai’i Opera Theatre to premiere in the 2026/27 season in Honolulu.
In March 2024, the Wilshire Ebell of Los Angeles remounted The Everywhere of Her, a children’s musical drama also created with Velina Hasu Houston, originally commissioned and produced by the Ebell in 2023.
Carla Lucero has also composed music for dance and for music-driven films. She recently collaborated in Prague with soprano Michelle Allie Drever to record “Sin vos”, an aria from Juana. The recording will be released on Navona Records in 2025, along with a film of the same title, created by Carson Gilmore of Vox Visceralis.
In the beginning stages of development are the operas Muriel & Anita, a true crime opera based in Napa, California, where Lucero currently resides, and Fracture, a story about a man whose splintered life is pieced together by the women who once loved him, using the metaphor of the Japanese art of Kintsugi. Fracture is based on the international bestseller by Andrés Neuman, who will cowrite the libretto.
Learn more at CarlaLucero.com.
Carla Lucero studied composition at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) with composers Rand Steiger, Morton Subotnick and Leonard Rosenman.
Her first opera, WUORNOS, about Aileen Wuornos, America’s first female serial killer, premiered in San Francisco in 2001, winning “10 Best of Stage” from The Advocate and Out magazines.
Her second opera, Juana, with co-librettist and author Alicia Gaspar de Alba, premiered in 2019 with Opera UCLA, winning a place in the “12 Best of Fall” by the Los Angeles Times. An opera in Spanish about 17th-century Mexican nun and icon Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Juana had its second performance in New York in 2022 with dell’Arte Opera Ensemble. A third production is being discussed for 2026 in Los Angeles. Juana is based on the award-winning book by Gaspar de Alba, Sor Juana’s Second Dream.
Her third opera, Las tres mujeres de Jerusalén (The Three Women of Jerusalem), a Spanish-language opera based on the Passion as seen through the eyes of the three women Jesus meets at the eighth station of the cross, was commissioned by LA Opera and premiered in 2022. It will be remounted by the company in 2025.
Lucero’s fourth opera, t o u c h, is about human rights activist Helen Keller. The libretto was co-written with Marianna Mott Newirth and premiered in 2024 with Opera Birmingham.
¡Chicanísima!, Lucero’s fifth opera, also premiered in 2024 at BRAVA Theater in San Francisco. It is about Chicana icon Olga Talamante and was commissioned and performed by Quinteto Latino. A Latin American production is in the works for 2025 with Mexican opera company Escenia Ensamble.
She is currently commissioned to create three operas: Hello, Star with librettist Jarrod Lee, commissioned by Opera Paralléle and premiering in 2025 in San Francisco; The Tower of Babel, a second commission by LA Opera, premiering in 2026; and Tea with librettist Velina Hasu Houston, commissioned by Hawai’i Opera Theatre to premiere in the 2026/27 season in Honolulu.
In March 2024, the Wilshire Ebell of Los Angeles remounted The Everywhere of Her, a children’s musical drama also created with Velina Hasu Houston, originally commissioned and produced by the Ebell in 2023.
Carla Lucero has also composed music for dance and for music-driven films. She recently collaborated in Prague with soprano Michelle Allie Drever to record “Sin vos”, an aria from Juana. The recording will be released on Navona Records in 2025, along with a film of the same title, created by Carson Gilmore of Vox Visceralis.
In the beginning stages of development are the operas Muriel & Anita, a true crime opera based in Napa, California, where Lucero currently resides, and Fracture, a story about a man whose splintered life is pieced together by the women who once loved him, using the metaphor of the Japanese art of Kintsugi. Fracture is based on the international bestseller by Andrés Neuman, who will cowrite the libretto.
Learn more at CarlaLucero.com.