THE SONG OF SAKUNTALA

WORLD PREMIERE JUNE 2026

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Music by Timothy Nelson

Texts by Sarojini Naidu Rabindranath Tagore, Vidyapati

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Featuring Aryssa Leigh Burrs, Teresa Ferrara, Marvin Wayne Allen

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With Rajib Karmakar, Emily Grace Konkle, Niccolo Seligmann, Stephanie Ying

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WIth its story taken from India’s most famous dramatic work, Kalidasa’s 5th century play Shakuntala, itself made into an opera by composers such as Alfano and Schubert, this new opera by IN Series Artistic Director Timothy Nelson fuses Western baroque instruments with Indian classical instruments to create a “dance-opera” on the themes of love, loss, and redemption. Its libretto is formed from the texts of formational Indian poets from across centuries, as well as the sacred Mahabharata words. Imagined in the still of a concert of Indian classical music, it promises an evening like a “single song, permutated across the hours, in a mood of evocation and remembrance and longing illuminated by swirling, dizzying aspiration - meditation, yearning, whispering, calling, chanting, talking and touching late into the night.”