The Shepherd School of Music Announces Major New Opera Commission from David and Susan Lummis in Memory of their Daughter Adelaide

The Shepherd School of Music Announces
Major New Opera Commission from David and Susan Lummis
in Memory of their Daughter Adelaide

Composed by Paola Prestini with a libretto by Mark Campbell,
the opera will premiere in Houston during the 2029–30 season

Brockman Hall for Opera, Shepherd School of Music (Photo: Brandon Martin)

Houston, TX, November 2, 2026 — The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University announces the commissioning of a new mainstage opera, resulting from a major financial commitment by David (Rice MBA ’84) and Susan Lummis in memory of their daughter Adelaide Emily Lummis. The opera, composed by Paola Prestini with libretto by Mark Campbell, will have its world premiere at the Lucian and Nancy Morrison Theater at Brockman Hall for Opera in the 2029–30 academic year with workshops beginning in 2028–29. This commission will give Shepherd School of Music students a complete hands-on experience in bringing an opera to life, from early readings to fully staged performances.

Adelaide Lummis was born in Houston and trained as an actor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, graduating in 2015 and then moving to Los Angeles to work in the theater and on screen. She died of cancer in November 2025, at the age of 32. After conversations with Shepherd School Dean Matthew Loden, David and Susan Lummis chose to honor Adelaide’s love of the theatrical arts by commissioning a new opera, and with a commitment to the young performers who, like Adelaide, are at the start of their careers.

During her final months, Adelaide was reading about the life of Grand Duchess Tatiana Romanov (the second daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra) and her sister Olga. Their relationship forms the creative heart of the new opera, a 90-minute one-act work focusing on the human, domestic side of the Romanov sisters as war and revolution unfold offstage. 

The Lummis family’s deep ties to Houston and Rice extend back generations: David’s mother, Marilyn, renovated the Lummis Courtyard in Alice Pratt Brown Hall, and both his father, Dr. Frederick Rice Lummis, Jr., and grandfather served as Rice University trustees and were direct descendants of William Marsh Rice’s younger brother. Continuing this family legacy, David has served as board president of the Shepherd Society Governing Council & Advisory Board, helping to safeguard the Shepherd School’s long-term future.

“Adelaide loved Russian drama, literature, and culture her entire life,” said David Lummis. “Given how things played out, her fascination with the doomed Romanov family is especially poignant. Susan and I are so honored to assist this amazing creative team in bringing this project to life in memory of our wonderful daughter.”

“David has been such an incredible partner, merging his wide-ranging intellect and love of the art form into a wonderfully collaborative partnership,” said Loden. “Being able to honor the memory of Adelaide while simultaneously bringing together such a powerful cast of creators is a rare moment. This will be an incredibly meaningful new work that already promises to live far beyond our Shepherd School premiere.”

“David and Susan Lummis’s support will have an immeasurable impact on Shepherd opera students,” said Joshua Winograde, Director of Opera Studies at Shepherd. “Being involved in the creation of a new opera from inception to performance is an unforgettable experience for opera singers, and our singers getting to participate in that process so early in their careers is a priceless gift made possible through the Lummis’s generosity.”

Working in close collaboration with the Lummis family, Loden and Winograde have assembled an all-star creative team to bring this opera to life. Paola Prestini was named one of the top 35 female composers in classical music by the Washington Post and one of the top 100 composers in the world by NPR. A visionary artist for whom collaboration is central to her mission, Prestini co-founded the Brooklyn venue National Sawdust in 2015 in order to nurture and support the creators who are reshaping classical music for the 21st century.

Mark Campbell is a Pulitzer Prize and GRAMMY Award–winning librettist whose operas are among the most popular in the contemporary canon. Campbell received the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Opera Association and was inducted into the OPERA America Hall of Fame in 2026. In 2020, he created the Campbell Opera Librettist Prize, the first and only award for opera librettists, administered annually by OPERA America. Prestini and Campbell previously collaborated on the 2023 opera Edward Tulane, based on a book by Newbery Award–winning author Kate DiCamillo.

Paola Prestini said: “At its core, the story of Tatiana Romanov is not a history lesson about empires; it is a story of love, devotion, and a young woman making the courageous choice to stand by her family even as the world around her fractures. Collaborating with Mark Campbell to bring the Lummis’s tribute to their daughter Adelaide to life at Rice’s Shepherd School of Music is a profound honor. Writing for the exceptional young artists at the Shepherd School allows us to capture the genuine youth, vulnerability, and resilience of Tatiana and Olga, tracing their journey from lyrical intimacy to profound dramatic silence.”

Mark Campbell said: “The Shepherd School of Music's investment in new work and its ascension in the opera community takes a big leap forward in this exciting new commission. I'm honored to be a part of it and am greatly looking forward to collaborating with Paola Prestini again. Our opera about the Duchess Tatiana will offer a moving portrait of a young woman who could not escape the fate she was born into as a daughter of the last tsar of Russia.”

During Dean Loden’s tenure, the Shepherd School of Music has solidified its role as a unique bridge between the academic study of music and the professional world. Under Winograde’s direction, the Shepherd Opera program produces two fully staged operas each year in Brockman Hall for Opera, which have included vital contemporary works such as John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles in 2025 and, coming in April 2027, the Texas premiere and first-ever university performances of Matthew Aucoin and Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. From numerous faculty commissions and world premieres — including Karim Al-Zand’s one-act opera A Joint Interest and Pierre Jalbert’s song cycle Another Starry Night for mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke (’04), both Shepherd School 50th anniversary commissions in 2025 — to on-campus workshops for cutting-edge new works in development such as Matthew Aucoin and Peter Sellars’s Music for New Bodies commissioned with DaCamera in 2024, regular partnerships with local performing arts organizations like the Houston Symphony, the Houston Grand Opera and the recently announced Cliburn International Conducting Competition launching in 2028, Shepherd offers meaningful opportunities for its students to learn experientially from leading artists around the world.

About Paola Prestini

Composer Paola Prestini has cultivated a uniquely expansive and humanistic musical voice through pieces that transcend genre and discipline, and projects whose global impact reverberates beyond the walls of the concert hall. Far more than just notes on a page, Prestini's works give voice to those whom society has silenced and offer a platform for the causes most vital to us all. Prestini has been named one of the Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music by the Washington Post, one of the top 100 Composers in the World by National Public Radio, and one of the Top 30 Professionals of the Year by Musical America. As Co-Founder of National Sawdust, she has collaborated with luminaries like poet Robin Coste Lewis, visual artists Julie Mehretu and Nick Cave, and musical legends David Byrne, Philip Glass and Renée Fleming, and her works have been performed throughout the world with leading institutions like the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Dallas Opera, London's Barbican Center, Mexico's Bellas Artes, and many more.

About Mark Campbell

The Pulitzer Prize- and GRAMMY Award-winning operas of librettist/lyricist Mark Campbell are among the most successful in the contemporary canon, praised for their ingenuity, their stylistic and thematic diversity, and for the direct, emotional connection they make with audiences. Mark has created 45 opera librettos, lyrics for 7 musicals, and text for 12 song cycles and 7 oratorios. His works include Silent Night, The Shining, Elizabeth Cree, As One, A Nation of Others, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, Sanctuary Road, Edward Tulane, A Thousand Acres, The Cook-Off, The Manchurian Candidate, Later the Same Evening, and Songs from an Unmade Bed. In 2020, he created the Campbell Opera Librettist Prize, the first and only award for opera librettists in the history of the art form. The award is given annually and administered by OPERA America. In 2022, he helped create the True Voice Award, administered by Washington National Opera, to help with the training of transgender opera singers. Mark received the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Opera Association and was inducted into the OPERA America Hall of Fame in 2026.

About the Shepherd School of Music

The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University cultivates the mastery of musical performance, combining a conservatory experience with the educational opportunities of a leading research university. With an enrollment of just 285 students, Shepherd fosters a close-knit, highly supportive environment defined by individualized instruction and exceptional artistic standards.

Each music major fine-tunes their craft with world-class teachers—accomplished artists and scholars in their own right—who are dedicated to nurturing talent and professional success. Through intensive mentorship and personalized training, students gain the skills, experience, and artistic voice needed to accelerate artistic growth and build distinguished careers.

In just fifty years, the Shepherd School of Music has risen to international prominence, becoming one of the youngest and most prestigious university-level programs in the country.

About Rice University

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of architecture, business, continuing studies, engineering and computing, humanities and arts, music, natural sciences and social sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy and Kinder Institute for Urban Research. Internationally, the university maintains the Rice Global Paris Center, a hub for innovative collaboration, research and inspired teaching located in the heart of Paris, and Rice Global India in Bengaluru, India. With 4,793 undergraduates and 4,185 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked in the top 10 for best quality of life by the Princeton Review.