Richard Danielpour/Toni Morrison: Margaret Garner

The East Coast premiere of this ambitious undertaking certainly has the most buzz of any opera production this season. The talent assembled, starting with the team of Danielpour, a composer capable of music that is both highly expressive and accessible, and noble laureate Morrison, carries considerable potential. The plot is based on a true story of a slave family who escaped from Kentucky, in 1856, only to be recaptured with tragic results.

Feb. 10-26, Opera Company of Philadelphia at the Academy of Music, Broad and Locust sts., 215-732-8400, www.operaphilly.org.

Curtis Opera Theatre director Mikael Eliasen has an interesting sense of style. This double bill combines one-act operas separated by over 300 years, both tales of troubled love and alienation, from ancient Greece to 1950s American suburbia.

Feb. 17-19, Curtis Opera Theatre at Curtis Opera Studio, 1726 Locust St., 215-893-7902, www.curtis.edu.

Wagner in Philadelphia? Well, pigs aren't flying just yet. There have been concert performances of single acts by the Philadelphia Orchestra (courtesy of its two most recent, and German-born, music directors). But amazingly, a complete performance of a Wagner opera has not been done in years, if not decades, and this will mark the first Das Rheingold here since 1939! Some caveats: This is a shorter work, a sort of prelude to the immense Ring Cycle by Wagner that followed it, and AVA is utilizing a piano reduction of the score. It will be fully staged, however, with the music sung in German, with English supertitles.

Feb. 18-28 and March 3, Academy of Vocal Arts at Helen Corning Warden Theater, 1920 Spruce St., 215-735-1685, www.avaopera.org.

Stravinsky's brilliant adaptation of a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale set in China will be heard in a concert performance, as part of a Curtis Symphony Orchestra concert conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya.

Feb. 21, Curtis Opera Theatre at Verizon Hall, 300 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999.

Anyone who thinks that Britten only wrote the atmospheric, often morose operas he is best known for, including Peter Grimes and Death in Venice, should be amazed and delighted by this earlier comedy. The often laugh-out-loud tale concerns the title character, a momma's boy who discovers wine, women and song one memorable evening, not to mention the naughty fun of tweaking one's parents' noses.

April 14-15, Curtis Opera Theatre at Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-893-7902.

The great operatic tragedian of the 19th century ended his glorious career, at the age of 80, with a comedy. This masterpiece has an extraordinary timelessness about it; there is nary an aria in sight, and yet it flows along like one giant song. Drawn from the two Shakespeare plays in which Sir John Falstaff appears, the work is as wise and full of humanity as the original words that inspired it.

April 21 and 23, Temple University Opera Theater at Tomlinson Theater, 13th and Norris sts., 215-204-7600.

Unlike Falstaff, Rigoletto is not based on a play by Verdi's literary hero, Shakespeare, but none of his other operas contains so great a variety of theatrical dynamics. The title character, a hunchbacked court jester, elicits both our pity and our disgust. The opera is best known for the magnificent ensemble singing, including the famous quartet in the last act, but a remarkable and less noted aspect of Rigoletto lies in Verdi's brilliant observations on political maneuvering.

April 28 and 30, May 2 and 4, Academy of Vocal Arts at Helen Corning Warden Theater.

Mozart's subject matter was scandalous when The Marriage of Figaro was first staged in 1786, depicting servants making fools of their masters, or rather, subtly conveying the revolutionary notions of egalitarianism in the air in those days. It was, in so many ways, the first modern opera, and to this day, one of the greatest.

May 5-21, Opera Company of Philadelphia at the Academy of Music.