Invisible Cities Opera

BQ: The idea of putting on an opera in a train station where the characters canbe nearly indistinguishable from everyday people in the waiting rooms is a strange and alluring. But that is only the beginning of an existential confusion between reality and unreality, of the private experience of listening to the opera on headphones while participating in the activities of a public space.

Christopher Cerrone's opera is based on Italo Calvino's 1972 poetic Italian novel, "Invisible Cities," in which the explorer Marco Polo entertains and bewilders the ageing 13th century Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan with tales of travels to 55 mysterious cities. All are imaginary places defined by the fragments of their peculiarities.

What so unique about Invisible Cities Opera are listeners and even general audience are given the chance to immerse in the stories, to be apart of the opera.

There are choices to follow different scenes, actors, or singers or even wandering elsewhere in Union Station. Dancers and singers all but appear and disappear, albeit mirage like. This peculiar trait produces the fact that one simply cannot sees everything, and that is the beauty of it.