Mind on Fire premiers AND WE, EACH - a new opera by Michael Hersch

Mind on Fire is proud to present the upcoming world premiere of Michael Hersch’s new opera, and we, each. The opera, built around the poetry of Shane McCrae, is an exploration of the treacherous territories of relationships – between individuals, within societies and, ultimately, the collapse of both.

Widely considered among the most gifted composers of his generation, MICHAEL HERSCH has been called a composer of “uncompromising brilliance” (The Washington Post) whose work has been described by The New York Times as “viscerally gripping and emotionally transformative music … claustrophobic and exhilarating at once, with moments of sublime beauty nestled inside thickets of dark virtuosity.” His 2019 opera Poppaeawas a recent nominee for the Austrian Music Theater Prize for “Best Contemporary Music Theater.” and we, each, is Hersch’s fourth opera.

SHANE MCCRAE, one of America’s most celebrated poets, has written work characterized as “ingenious … where the dignity of English meter meets, as in a mosh pit, the vitality – and often the brutality – of American speech.” (The New Yorker); “…dangerous” (The New York Times); a poet whose work “isn’t easy to shake” (Publisher’s Weekly); a poet who confronts the challenging “facts of the world, head-on — while… transposing the literal into the otherworldly.” (Los Angeles Review of Books).