Librettist Lila Palmer is deeply committed to expanding the perspective of stories on operatic stages. Her advocacy for arts across the public sphere has led to ground-breaking collaborations with active-duty female military personnel (Dead Equal), healthcare professionals and patients (The Jewel Merchants), and several heritage spaces, including The Museum of London, The London Transport Museum, and Trebah Gardens. Her operatic work has recently been recognized with an Edinburgh Fringe Lustrum Award, and she was honored to be named an Aix-en-Provence Festival Women in Opera Professional Artist. In art song repertoire, This Be Her Verse, her song cycle with Kathleen Tagg for soprano Golda Schultz, earned critical acclaim for international premieres in Canada, Scotland, Switzerland, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Hailed by Opera News as “a new repertoire staple,” the work’s Alpha Classics album was named one of The Times 10 Best Classical Records of 2022.

Palmer’s warmth, clarity, and stylistic flexibility have made her a favored partner of both established and emerging composers. The 2024/25 season sees the world premieres of American Apollo, created with composer Damien Geter for Des Moines Opera, and the film operas Yours, Jill and Flesh with Opera on the Avalon, written with Jonathan Munro and Mark Adamo, respectively. Forthcoming projects with Marc Migó will be premiered by Barcelona’s Gran Teatro del Liceu and La Fura dels Baus.

Recent successes include The Fox Sisters with Marc Migó at the Liceu, children’s opera The Selfish Giant with Clarice Assad at Opera Saratoga, and In Her Own Valley with Grace Mason at Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Other recent commissions include These Wandering Stones with Clare Elton for London’s Barbican Centre and Scraww! with Max Pappenheim for Trebah Gardens. Her opera Holy Ground with Damien Geter was featured in the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series before receiving its world premiere at the Glimmerglass Festival.

As a respected producer, Palmer excels at building relationships with varied stakeholders across fields. She brings that expertise to her role as General and Artistic Director of New Orleans Opera Association, where she leads business, civic, and community partnerships while expanding the range and context of artistic programming. Elsewhere, she has served as a mentor for new works development at companies across North America, and she currently sits on the selection panel for the National Opera Association’s Dominick Argento Fellowship for Opera Composition.

Palmer is a lifelong champion for the arts, with a career spanning many sectors of the cultural economy. As an essayist, she has recently been published in Opera Now, the i, and The Herald, while her blogs and program notes have been commissioned by the Carl Nielsen Competition, English National Opera, Leeds Piano competition, and other leading arts programmers. As a presenter and interviewer, she has had the great fortune to interview opera stars like Ferruccio Furlanetto and Edita Gruberova, and to co-host the International Tchaikovsky Competition with Alexander Malich in St. Petersburg for Medici TV.

An accomplished lyrical mezzo-soprano, Palmer trained at English National Opera before she committed to creating new opera in 2014. Over the ensuing decade, her skill in advocating and writing for the classically trained voice has enabled her to continually bridge the gap between interpreter and creative. She is proud to be the only dual graduate of the Royal Opera House and Guildhall School’s Opera Makers in MA program and American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program, and she is also an alumna of Tapestry Opera’s LIBLAB. She holds additional degrees from Cambridge University (BA History 1:1) and New England Conservatory (MM Vocal Performance). Palmer resides in New Orleans with her two children and her husband, conductor Joshua Anand Slater.