VIENNA — The prompter’s box at the foot of the stage of the Vienna State Opera houses the person to whom divas can turn at forgetful moments for a snippet of text to get back on track.

But it was put to a different use — and by a different kind of diva — during a rehearsal here last month, when the cabaret singer Justin Vivian Bond, wearing a gauzy black Comme des Garçons gown, strode onto the box, raised a glass, and screamed an expletive directed at “the patriarchy.” The chorus, as indicated in the script, erupted in an ovation.

It was a moment that summed up the barriers being broken by the work being rehearsed: Olga Neuwirth’s new opera, “Orlando,” based on the gender-crossing fictional biography by Virginia Woolf, is the first piece the Vienna State Opera has ever performed by a female composer. With a libretto by Ms. Neuwirth and Catherine Filloux, and costumes by Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, it premieres on Sunday, and will be available to stream for three days, starting on Dec. 18, at staatsoperlive.com.

In the opera, as in the novel, a young nobleman at the court of Elizabeth I falls in love and goes on military adventures before experiencing a sudden change of sex. As a woman, she lives without aging, roams freely through time and space, interacts with great writers and leaders, and chronicles the hidden, personal narratives of women often left out of official histories.