According to composer-lyricist Heather Christian, for her Oratorio for Living Things, the subject is time—and there’s no reason not to take her word for it.
So, when listening to and watching the piece, a revival of the 2022 Ars Nova debut, it ought to be fair enough to ask: Is it possible that since time is always moving forward, can a production be effective and ineffective at the same time?
Perhaps it is, for that’s how I experienced the 90-minute piece. Having missed the initial production, I was eager at last to attend the widely praised musical endeavor. Having now seen and heard it, I’m obliged to say my take was not unadulterated bliss.
It can be said that as someone familiar with the Ars Nova set-up—the performance space often being a narrow corridor between an oblong configuration of narrow bleachers—I’ve correctly reckoned that the current space (a reconfigured version of the Signature’s Romulus Linney auditorium) is a slightly more capacious copy of the previous arena. That would make it true to Christian’s expectations as well as those of returning director Lee Sunday Evans.
Moreover, many of the performers—selected for angelic voices and living up to the promise—are Oratorio for Living Things veterans and include Kirstyn Cae Ballard, Jonathan Christopher, Carla Duren, Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Brian Flores, Jonny-James Kajoba, Barrie Lobo McLain, Ángel Lozada, Divya Maus, Ben Moss, Onyie Nwachukwu, and Dito Van Reigersberg.
First, let’s hear it for the highly effective elements: Christian’s music is both sumptuous and austere. That’s to say, its presentation as a modern-day oratorio sounds exactly right, certainly as conducted by Jane Cardona and interpreted by the six-part orchestra playing unseen above the end of the room where audience members enter and exit. The resultant overarching spirituality catches listeners in the palm of its many, many pages of exacting measures.
Furthermore, the up-close-and-personal singing has a mesmerizing power in all the unison, combo, and solo sequences. It looks and sounds as if each of the dozen performers has the welcome opportunity, if not opportunities, to be heard individually. The result is that, following director Evans’ assembling and reassembling them, they come off as an ideal church or synagogue or mosque or what-have-you choir. Think of them in this religious setting as the chosen people.
And now to the less effective and, sorry to say, blemishing elements: In promotion heralding the Oratorio for Living Things revisit, the descriptive “genre-denying” adjective is invoked. That’s to say, Christian, one of this year’s MacArthur grant recipients, delights in mixing and mingling genres.
Primarily, there’s the text, and what a dazzler it is, as dedicated to Carl Sagan, Carl Orff and Carlo Rovelli. Divided into sections with titles like “Beginning (Infinite fractal),” “Alligatum (membranes),” “Oxygen + Photosynthesis,” “Carbon/DNA,” and on to “Collisions,” and “Hydrogen and Helium: History of Violence,” it deals not only with the promised notion of time.
Science is chief among other subjects, focusing on the human cell and human anatomy. As Christian recently stated in The New Yorker’s Talk, while claiming she’s not a scientist, she finds it easy to rely on musical metaphors—counterpoint, fugue, canon, repetition—to indicate scientific equivalents. She wants listeners “to feel it emotionally and in their bodies.”
Which eventuates, yes, but what about absorbing the profoundly encompassing oratorio intellectually? Her audience feels the music, but how much of the words, many of them Latin, are clear? If I’m any judge, not a large percentage of what’s sung is absorbed as other than unintelligible sounds.
Then, what does Christian’s verbal literary offering amount to? Her poetic narrative is so complex that it requires close attention. Christian and Evans acknowledge as much by having the libretto handy. This means that choosing to follow the libretto closely—the way it’s placed on the page is idiosyncratic—distracts from watching the constantly rearranging ensemble movements. In other words, spectators are all but forced to become either watchers or listeners. But if a listener, why even bother to attend a performance? Aurally, there’s insufficient difference.
What did I do? Heading to my seat, I declined to take advantage of the smartly published libretto. I consulted it later, and what a revelation. What had I missed? Just about everything. (I suppose I need to say there’s nothing wrong with my hearing.)
Yes, I picked up the occasional declaration. Despite my almost entirely faded Latin, I did hear “Omnia mutantur, nihil internit” and understood that everything changes, nothing’s eternal. (Correct me if I’m wrong, you Latin scholars.) The confession that “My family has a history of violence” had me hoping to know more. But, more’s the pity, I only heard the succeeding vocal sounds.
Toward the end it would have been helpful to hear:
We are changing
That doesn’t change
We are walking round and starting loops and fires
We are not just the total sum of our desires
We are in the mire,
Not just one voice but in the choir
On the other hand, if just being engulfed by gorgeous music, delightful singing is wanted, Oratorio for Living Things is the place to be.
Oratorio for Living Things opened October 16, 2025, at Signature Center and runs through November 16. Tickets and information: signaturetheatre.org
