Tickets have gone on sale today for City Opera's world premiere of Pauline, Margaret Atwood's first opera at the newly refurbished York Theatre from May 23 to 31.

The chamber work focuses on Canadian writer-actress Pauline Johnson, to be played by mezzo Rose-Ellen Nichols.

It features a libretto by Atwood and music by Tobin Stokes, both of whom are scheduled to attend the opening gala at the York on May 23. Norman Armour directs and City Opera's Charles Barber conducts.

The opera is set in 1913, as Johnson is dying of cancer, and through her morphine haze she remembers the struggles of her life to reconcile her dual identity as the daughter of a Mohawk chief and a Quaker Englishwoman.

Tickets are available via the Cultch.