Counter Codex to Present ‘Plague Mass’

Queer opera company Counter Codex will present “Plague Mass,” a new opera about the AIDS epidemic, on Nov. 19 and 21, 2026, at Speyer Hall at University Settlement on the Lower East Side in New York.

The opera is set in the aftermath of Rock Hudson’s 1985 announcement of his AIDS diagnosis. The spirit of Keith Haring convenes Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Mathilde Krim, and Ronald Reagan in a liminal space to perform a ritual to help Hudson move on to the next life. The opera is performed in English and Latin with projected titles and translations.

The work is created by six composers (Sarah Genevieve Burghart Rice, Jasmine Galante, Joseph N. Rubinstein, Jordan Rutter-Covatto, Lucas Tahiruzzaman Syed, and Derek Weagle) and five librettists (Clare Bierman, Johnny Lloyd, Chiara M. N., Heather O’Donovan, and Fred Sauter), with a book by Rutter-Covatto.

Sam Helfrich directs the production.

The cast features Rutter-Covatto as Haring, Daveed Buzaglo as Hudson, Melaina Mills as Taylor, Danielle Buonaiuto as Krim, and Daniel Klein as Reagan.

“It can be difficult for people outside of certain subsets of the queer community to understand just how much this news shook the country and the impact it had on the public perception of the disease,” said Jordan Rutter-Covatto, per an official press release. “We founded counter codex to center the perspectives of queer people and the Leather/Kink community in classical music experiences, so it felt important during the semisesquicentennial to tell a uniquely American LGBTQIA+ story and take part in intergenerational storytelling in honor of those we lost to AIDS in the 80s and beyond. Furthermore, in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns, we are in a unique time where the general public is able to relate to the existential threat of a pandemic in a way that was impossible before 2020. The connections the audience shares with the characters across sexual identity, socioeconomic class, and time are in dialogue with questions of shared identity: Who is part of the gay community? Who is an American? What does it mean to be a part of the human race?”

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