A mysterious hum and a charismatic leader stoke chaos in Missy Mazzoli's opera

In a pivotal early scene of The Listeners, two of the opera’s main characters discover a desperate commonality. “So it’s not in my head?” sings Kyle, a teenager plagued by a buzzing noise. His high school teacher, Claire, begins to cry as she reassures him: “I thought I was the only one.”

The soprano Nicole Heaston, who portrays Claire, and the tenor Aaron Crouch, who plays Kyle, sang through the scene several times during a recent Opera Philadelphia rehearsal at the city’s Academy of Music. Standing on a stage set evoking Claire’s classroom, they repeatedly landed together on a cathartic refrain: “You hear it, too. / You hear it, too. / You hear it, too.”

Missy Mazzoli, the heralded composer of The Listeners, and Royce Vavrek, its acclaimed librettist, watched the scene approvingly from off to one side, taking notes. The opera’s director, Lileana Blain-Cruz, occasionally darted on set to deliver precise feedback. What they were all intent on calibrating was the mix of torment, commiseration and relief in that moment — as two chronic sufferers of a mysterious affliction discover they aren’t really alone.

“This whole story revolves around this crazy noise that only a certain percentage of the population can hear,” explained Mazzoli during a break in rehearsals, sitting at one of the classroom desks on set next to Vavrek. “And this was based on actual noises throughout the world; there’s one in Taos, New Mexico, there’s one near Detroit. These areas where people report hearing these mysterious sounds.”

The hum, as it’s also commonly known in real life, provides the hinge on which this opera turns. Claire and Kyle find community in a local support group for those who hear the hum — led by a guru named Howard, whose benevolent encouragements drape a thin veil over the controlling designs of a cult leader. Mazzoli and Vavrek developed the story with the Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill, who also published it as a novel in 2021. (It’s now in the process of being adapted into a BBC series.)

“In our initial conversations with Jordan, I said, ‘I’m really interested in cults,’ ” Mazzoli said, recalling a crop of Netflix documentaries on the subject. “It’s this consistently fascinating idea. I was also interested in the power of charismatic leaders in our society. There was a lot of discussion about that politically and elsewhere: the potential for the manipulation of vulnerable people by these charismatic leaders.” Nodding toward Vavrek, she added: “And I think at the core of a lot of our work is this figure of a seemingly ordinary woman who finds herself in an impossible and extraordinary situation.”

Mazzoli and Vavrek, who live within a mile of each other in Brooklyn, are seasoned collaborators: Their previous Opera Philadelphia premiere was Breaking the Waves, based on the Lars von Trier film. (In 2017, it won the inaugural best new opera award from the Music Critics Association of North America.) Their next opus — Lincoln in the Bardo, adapted from the George Saunders novel — will have its world premiere during the 2026–'27 season of The Metropolitan Opera.

The Listeners follows Claire as she leaves her husband and teenage daughter in search of healing at Howard’s spacious compound. There she encounters not only communion but also new purpose among her fellow congregants, though it comes through a series of uneasy turns. “The hum is cruel but kind,” Heaston, as Claire, sings at one point in Act II. “It has given me the heart of a leader.”

During a break in rehearsals, Blain-Cruz praised The Listeners as a model of suspense, not only for its plot mechanics but also because of a shifting moral center. “That’s what’s so thrilling about Missy and Royce’s work: They’re not afraid to go into the darkest recesses of the mind and psychology,” she said. “There’s a real fascination: What is our attraction to people who can wield this power? Why do we fall into traps that would seemingly be so obvious in hindsight? How do we get seduced by the mystery of those who know how to manipulate us?”

Those questions unfold within a world that looks and feels disquietingly a lot like our own. The Listeners is set in the present day, in a southwestern suburb abutting the desert. In rehearsals, after the aforementioned moment between Claire and Kyle, Blain-Cruz coached three young singers through a successive scene involving three gossiping teenage girls; among the props she handed out were iPhones, a joint and a vape pen. Later in the opera, Howard and Claire attempt to recruit new followers with a stream on Facebook Live, sounding a playful chord of recognition.

Vavrek, whose libretto has a strikingly conversational feel, replete with common vulgarities, considers relatability a part of his mission. “A lot of people in the world don’t necessarily think that opera can connect with them — that it is this high art that’s sort of lofty,” he reflected during the break. “And I really am excited about trying to find ways of storytelling that bring in new audiences and just inspire people to see opera as something that connects with them.”

That jolt of familiarity in The Listeners feels like a sleight of hand, coming as it does with true operatic grandeur. “Musically, I’m attracted to opera because it illuminates our inner lives,” Mazzoli said. “So we might speak in everyday language, but our feelings are huge. Or they’re small and far-ranging. What goes on in our minds and our imaginations is much more colorful and wild and weirder than what we present on the outside. And I think opera illuminates that for people, on the stage.”

Copyright 2024, WRTI Your Classical and Jazz Source