The plot of Margaret Garner is highly dramatic, but also quite bleak, a seemingly daring choice for a popular culture inured to happy endings. The libretto is based on a true story from the last years of the age of slavery in America. Garner, a slave on a Kentucky plantation, escapes with her family across the frozen Ohio River in 1856, only to be recaptured by professional slave catchers. Devastated by her fate, she opts to kill her own children, rather than condemn them to a life of slavery. She manages to stab her daughter to death before she is apprehended. The dark irony then lies in the options for her punishment: Will she be charged for murder in the free state of Ohio, or charged for the destruction of property, that is, her own child, in the slave state of Kentucky?

A harrowing tale, indeed. But this is the strange and wonderful world of opera, and the standards for drama are often skewed to the macabre. Some of the most popular examples of the art form include, variously, tales in which a father accidentally kills his daughter and drags the body around in a sack (Rigoletto), the protagonist slobbers over a severed head before being crushed to death (Salome) and a heroine viciously stabs a would-be lover to death and finally throws herself over a wall (Tosca).

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY: Robert Driver says Margaret Garner is "so laden with American history and culture, told in a way that can be cathartic."

For Robert Driver, artistic director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia (OCP) and one of the three producers of the opera, the Margaret Garner narrative is a natural for an operatic treatment. "There is a new opera based on Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, but the story of Margaret Garner is really the American tragedy. It strikes a note with me as being so laden with American history and culture, told in a way that can be cathartic."

It has been Driver's dream, since coming to Philadelphia 15 years ago, to be involved in new work. But in real-world terms, the prospect of commissioning and producing a new opera is an enormous challenge. "If I had announced to our board six years ago that we were going to do six performances of a new opera at the Academy of Music, at a cost more than our Aida staging, I don't think they would have fired me. They would have committed me." He begins with a strong creative team, librettist Toni Morrison, the Nobel laureate author, and Richard Danielpour, an acclaimed composer with a solid track record of creating new music that is at once original and highly communicative. The collaborators are friends, and actually conceived of the plan for an opera based on the Garner story before anyone at an opera company had pondered the commission. Morrison encountered the material while researching her novel Beloved.

David DiChiera, general director of the Michigan Opera Theater (MOT) in Detroit, and a friend and former fellow board member of Driver's at Opera America, was alerted to the nascent plan, and earnestly set about establishing a partnership with OCP, MOT and the Cincinnati Opera. Although Michigan is the lead company, Philadelphia became central to the plans, mainly as the source for much of the vocal talent. "It was important for us to participate," says Driver. "We started the buzz early. I wanted to be sure that there were the elements for a success, and that what we created would be repeatable."

So far, the process has encountered amazingly few complications, at least as far as Driver is concerned, or is willing to disclose. For one, he is not bothered by the withdrawal from the cast by regal soprano Jessye Norman, easily the best-known name among the singers. "She was not my choice. The part, the mother-in-law of Margaret Garner, is supposed to be earthy and warm. Jessye Norman as the maternal type? I don't think so! She made her American opera debut with OCP in dual roles as Queen [Dido and Jocasta] and has kept that rank ever since."

The Norman part has since been filled by Angela Brown, no stranger to Philadelphia boards. The lead role will be taken by Denyce Graves, whose Philadelphia debut was in the comic title role in Offenbach's La Perichole, about as far emotionally from Garner as you can get. She also has strong ties to the Detroit opera scene. Gregg Baker, another OCP regular, will play Garner's husband, Robert, and Rod Gilfry will make his OCP debut as the slave master Edward Gaines.

Driver is optimistic about the endeavor, despite the stakes being high and the odds historically poor, as his own experience at Opera America demonstrated. "I have the memory that so few new works were successful." Nor is he bothered that the honor of the world premiere went to Detroit. "We didn't have the stress of the opening, and we have the benefit of a production that has grown in strength. There is a sense of mission with this cast," he says. To which one might add, at the risk of stating the obvious, that Aida and La Bohème were once new operas, too.

Margaret Garner runs Fri., Feb. 10, 8 p.m.; Sat., Feb. 12, 2:30 p.m.; Wed., Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m., $6-$161, through Feb. 26, 215-893-1999, www.operaphilly.com.