Watch HDToday. The painter Lili Elbe was the first person to have gender confirmation surgery in the 1930s. The homonymous opera is a glimpse into the life of Lili Elbe and her wife Gerda Wegener (also a famous painter) through Lili’s transition at a time when such surgery was still completely uncharted territory. American composer and Grammy winner Tobias Picker and librettist Aryeh Lev Stollman have written the world's first major opera for and about a person with a transgender background. Commissioned by Konzert und Theater St. Gallen, Lili Elbe, in the tradition of great works of the operatic repertoire, is the story of a love overcoming all obstacles.