Published8 Aug 2024
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MoreThe Listeners composed by Philadelphia native Missy Mazzoli makes its American Premiere in her hometown opera house, the Academy of Music, September 25-29
New York preview set for Sunday, Sept. 15, as part of Works & Process at the Guggenheim
Eyes and ears will be on Opera Philadelphia in September as the company’s 2024-2025 Season begins with the highly anticipated American Premiere of The Listeners, the newest opera from the Philadelphia-born, Grammy-nominated composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek. Their 2016 world premiere, Breaking the Waves, was a phenomenon that won the inaugural Best New Opera Award from the Music Critics Association of North America and has been performed all over the world since its Philadelphia debut. Performed at the historic Academy of Music from Sept. 25-29, The Listeners is a thriller about social rejection, suburban loneliness, and the seductive power of cults and charismatic leaders in our increasingly polarized times.
“It is the realization of a personal dream to work at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia,” said Mazzoli, who grew up in the Philly suburb of Lansdale. “I have a clear memory of walking by that building as a teenager and thinking, ‘one day, my music will be performed here.’ The Listeners was a fantastic project to debut with Norwegian National Opera in 2022 and I cannot wait to bring it to the U.S. with my hometown company, Opera Philadelphia.”
Based on an original story by Canadian writer Jordan Tannahill, The Listeners is inspired by an actual phenomenon called “the global hum,” a low-pitched sound that 4% of the global population claim to hear. Tannahill’s story became a best-selling novel in 2021 and is being adapted into a limited BBC television series by Element Pictures (Normal People, Poor Things) starring Rebecca Hall.
The Listeners will be previewed in New York City on Sunday, September 15, at 7:00 p.m. as part of Works & Process at the Guggenheim. Mazzoli and Vavrek will be joined by members of the cast for a discussion and performance of selections from the opera. Buy Tickets
The Listeners examines the lengths to which we, as Americans, are willing to go to find a sense of place and purpose, and the way in which confident, charming leaders can exploit these needs to their own ends. The story centers on a middle-class mother (soprano Nicole Heaston in her company debut) living in a southwestern U.S. suburb who notices a “hum,” a high-frequency environmental noise that only a select few people, the "Listeners,” can hear. A community organization quickly forms to solve the mystery of the hum, but when the de facto leader (Kevin Burdette) suggests a spiritual significance, the meetings become increasingly cult-like. Is this community of “Listeners” on a collision course with destruction?
“It’s both a psychological thriller and an intimate portrait of modern family life,” says Mazzoli. “From the first words that are sung – ‘This is how we live now. Unbelievable.’ – to the shocking final twist, this piece has been a joy to write and a thrill to bring to life with our amazing creative team, led by director Lileana Blain-Cruz. Jordan Tannahill’s story and Royce Vavrek’s libretto cut through to the reality of the chaos and longing that roils underneath every seemingly ‘normal’ family, and in the hearts of everyone who dares to pursue their true destiny.”
Vavrek adds that “The Listeners is an opera that is in dialogue with our 21st century experience, a work that seeks to illuminate what it means to be a citizen of the world right now.”
Central to the opera is the need to belong and to be valued.
“We seek belonging in so much of what we do, in religion, in art and, of course, in love,” says Vavrek. “The strong need to be seen, to belong, to feel you have worth, can make you blind. Even the smartest people can wind up in such situations, as these as among our strongest needs as human beings.”
Respected music critic and author Alex Ross calls The Listeners “a potent, chilling and excruciatingly relevant work.” In the New Yorker, Ross names Mazzoli among “a growing cohort of American women taking possession of contemporary opera,” going on to say The Listeners is “one of the year’s strongest music-theatre scores.”
The Philadelphia cast includes baritone Troy Cook as Claire’s husband, Paul Devon, and soprano Lindsey Reynolds as their teen daughter, Ashley. Bass Kevin Burdette returns in the role of Howard Bard, charismatic leader of the Listeners, with mezzo Rehanna Thelwell as Angela Rose, Howard’s right-hand woman. Baritone John Moore (Breaking the Waves) and tenor Aaron Crouch also star as members of the group.
The Listeners is directed by Tony Award nominee Lileana Blain-Cruz, recipient of the Drama League’s 2022 Founders Award for Excellence in Directing and current resident director of Lincoln Center Theater. Blain-Cruz made her Metropolitan Opera directing debut in April, leading a new production of El Niño by John Adams. Having recently led a Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, she will next develop a stage musical adaptation of Prince’s Purple Rain alongside playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
The production is designed by Tony Award nominee Adam Rigg and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly, with lighting design by Yi Zhao, sound design by Daniel Neumann, video design by Hannah Wasileski, and costume design by Kaye Voyce. Jack Mulroney Music Director Corrado Rovaris leads the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra, with Elizabeth Braden leading the Opera Philadelphia Chorus.
The Listeners is Mazzoli and Vavrek’s fourth opera together, having previously collaborated on Song from the Uproar, Breaking the Waves, and Proving Up. Their fifth opera, Lincoln in the Bardo, will receive its world premiere with LA Opera and the Metropolitan Opera in 2026.
The Listeners is co-commissioned and co-produced with Norwegian National Opera, where it made its world premiere in 2022, and Lyric Opera of Chicago. Major support for The Listeners has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, Stephen A. Block, Robert N. Braun, M.D., Marcus Innovation Fund, and Ashley and Eli Wald.
This production includes explicit language, sexual content, flashing lights, and fog effects. There is brief mention of self-harm and suicide, and brief threats of violence involving a firearm. Recommended for mature audiences.
The Listeners
Music by Missy Mazzoli
Libretto by Royce Vavrek
Based on an original story by Jordan Tannahill
American Premiere
September 25, 27, 29, 2024
Academy of Music
Performed in English with English supertitles
About Opera Philadelphia
Opera Philadelphia, the only American finalist for both the 2016 International Opera Award for Best Opera Company and the 2020 International Opera Award for Best Festival, is “the very model of a modern opera company” (Washington Post). Committed to developing opera for the 21st century, the company is recognized as “a hotbed of operatic innovation” (New York Times). For more information, visit operaphila.org.