Opera Review: A Show About Nothing

The Whisper Opera returns (quietly) to New York.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Ross Karre hugs a bass drum in a performance of David Lang's The Whisper Opera.
Photo courtesy International Contemporary Ensemble.

For almost five hundred years, humanity has used the form of opera to express itself. And for most of those centuries the argument has always run: which is more important--the words, or the music? (There's even a couple of operas about that very subject. However, in The Whisper Opera, which premiered in 2013 at Mostly Mozart, and returns this week for a run of performances at the Skirball Center at NYU, the composer David Lang provides his own answer. Mr. Lang, who is one of the founders of Bang On A Can chooses "neither."