“‘Though the operas reflect different historical moments and geographies,’ adds director Jennifer Williams, ‘the themes of the fragility of life and the resilience of love tie them together. The stories are photonegatives of each other: Venus and Adonis reveals life to be a fragile artifice, and Sāvitri reveals death to be an illusion.’ Williams plans to evoke these themes in an immersive production. Venus and Adonis will be performed as ‘modern-day court entertainment, where we see all the mechanics of theater, through a Baroque-meets-MTV lens.’ Sāvitri poses some unique challenges in that Holst created his own adaptation of the episode from the Mahabharata. ‘It’s a very problematic approach to storytelling — which means we need to be thoughtful about how we engage with the adaptation and bring the story to life onstage. I want to make this story inclusive.’”

“The joyful aspect was largely created by Director Jennifer Williams’ favoring of frolic and fun. We had a wide smile throughout and were hit by a wave of sadness at the tragic ending ... The simple story has been decked out with some very amusing scenes, the best of which involves Cupid giving lessons on love to his students in a classroom setting. We don’t always enjoy the current trend for gilding Baroque operas with such fancies but in this case it worked extraordinarily well and we now consider ourself a fan of Ms. Williams.”