Corigliano and Hoffman took as the starting point for the opera the 1792 play La Mère coupable (The Guilty Mother) by Pierre Beaumarchais.
[2][3] The original cast included Teresa Stratas, Håkan Hagegård, Renée Fleming, Graham Clark, Gino Quilico, and Marilyn Horne.
General Manager Peter Gelb had already invited Kristin Chenoweth to play the part of Samira, alongside Angela Gheorghiu as Marie Antoinette and Thomas Hampson as Beaumarchais.
[8][9] The work was given its West Coast premiere in 2015 at Los Angeles Opera in a full-scale production starring Patricia Racette, Christopher Maltman and Patti LuPone, conducted by James Conlon.
As Marie Antoinette is too haunted by her execution to reciprocate his love, Beaumarchais announces his intention to change her fate through the plot of his new opera A Figaro for Antonia.
Figaro appears, chased by his wife Susanna, his employer Count Almaviva, his many creditors and quite a lot of women claiming he is the father of their children.
Meanwhile, Count Almaviva is engaged in a secret plan to sell Marie Antoinette's jeweled necklace[a] to the English ambassador to buy the Queen's freedom.
Figaro is fired, but overhears Bégearss and his dimwitted servant Wilhelm hatching a plot to arrest the Count that evening at the Turkish embassy when he sells the Queen's necklace to the English ambassador.
During the outrageous performance of the Turkish singer Samira, Figaro steals the necklace from the Count before the sale can take place and runs away, hotly pursued by everybody else.
To put the story back on course and despite the danger to himself, Beaumarchais enters the opera and shocks Figaro into submission by forcing him to witness the unfair trial of Marie.
Beaumarchais and Figaro arrive at the prison to try to rescue the Almavivas, but it is the Countess, Susanna and Florestine who come up with a plan: using their feminine wiles on poor Wilhelm, who is their jailer, they steal his keys, unlock their cell and, after locking him inside, attempt to flee.
Bégearss is arrested as a traitor to the Revolution and dragged off, the Almavivas leave and Beaumarchais, after bidding a fond farewell to his favorite creation (i.e. Figaro), is left with the keys to the Queen's cell and proceeds to complete his plan.
Events proceed: the Queen is executed; Figaro, Susanna and the Almavivas escape to America; and Marie Antoinette and Beaumarchais are united in Paradise.
In 2015, Richard S. Ginell of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "many still differ as to whether 'Ghosts' has lived up to the hype and expense of its 1991 premiere at the Metropolitan Opera.
"[15] Up until recently, the only recordings were a VHS of a televised production from PBS' The Metropolitan Opera Presents in 1992 and a Constant Linear Velocity (CLV) LaserDisc of the same performance.