Opera | Video | Baroque

Hope identifies with Beyoncé. Love doesn’t return Death’s emails. Time swigs Stoli in his tighty whities. In this postmodern pop opera by singer-composer Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) and writer-director-designer Andrew Ondrejcak, the buttoned-up allegorical figures of 17th-century court entertainment search for meaning amid celebrity crushes, Lucite chairs, and gym culture. The Belgium-based Baroque ensemble B.O.X., under the direction of Pieter Theuns, enlivens the whimsical text by Ondrejcak and the score by Worden, who performs alongside Helga Davis (Einstein on the Beach, 2012 Next Wave) and three other vocalists in this fable of idealism in the iPhone age.