Madison Lyric Stage, a professional theater company on the Connecticut shoreline, presents an original evening of suspense, music and murder, Four Murders in Forty Years, September 19 – 21, featuring operatic excerpts and one-act operas exploring the lives of different individuals occupying the same tenement apartment over four decades.
Each representing a different decade, the evening includes several works including The Medium by Gian Carlo Menotti and La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice) by Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau, both presented in English.
In The Medium, phony psychic, Madame Flora, uses her clients’ grief to deceive them – but one night, a supernatural encounter leads to murder and madness. In La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice) a lonely woman, Elle, is consumed by an obsessive, destructive love that destroys her.
“I wanted to explore the transitory presence of individuals in a single space, which in our production is a dirty tenement apartment, over a period of decades,” said Marc Deaton, artistic director of Madison Lyric Stage. “Utilizing several great operatic works, this production explores the moments that have shaped the apartment’s history, including heartbreak, betrayal and even acts of unexpected kindness.”
The evening is conceptualized and directed by Marc Deaton with musical direction by Nathaniel Baker. The evening features: Amy Maude Helfer, Heidi Engstrom, Sarah Kennedy, Mary McCue, Emily Solo, Seamus Copland, Alison Lindsay and Jonathan Mildner.
Tickets are $55 and are available at madisonlyricstage.org. Performance times are Friday and Saturday at 7:00 pm, and Sundays at 4:00 pm at the historic Deacon John Grave House, located at 581 Boston Post Road in Madison.