Boston Lyric Opera's 'The Seasons' blends emotional and climate turmoil

"Nature is furious, nature is furious," sings a character in the opera "The Seasons" as the weather around her grows more chaotic. "Could she forgive us if we could change? Can we change?" she asks.

"The Seasons," which has its world premiere at the Emerson Paramount Center from March 12-16, takes place in the near future where Earth's seasons are out of order. A group of artists retreats to nature hoping to find inspiration for their work, but they realize they'll also have to confront the extreme weather outside their window.

Playwright Sarah Ruhl and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo conceived the production and use music from Antonio Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" to tell a story about climate change and the forces of nature that mirror the characters' emotions.

Ruhl, who wrote "The Seasons" libretto, grew up listening to Vivaldi's world-famous violin concertos on cassette tapes during long family road trips. The cycle of seasons in the work – spring, summer, autumn, winter – is familiar to many, including Ruhl. This familiarity has persisted since "The Four Seasons" was composed in the early 18th century, inspiring Ruhl to connect it to the uncertainty of today's world under climate change.

" You hear 'Winter' and it sounds like winter," she said. "There's a sense that the cycles are predictable and harmonious to some degree. And I feel like lately, the weather's so extreme, it does not feel predictable."

Ruhl points to the recent wildfires in Los Angeles, flooding in the South and stronger hurricanes in Florida as evidence of extreme weather disrupting these natural cycles.

" The world is always besieged by storms, but everyone agrees that the extreme weather is being driven by climate change and that we actually have the tools we need to stop it," she said.

One of those tools is storytelling, Ruhl said, because nothing makes people feel more deeply than music. And opera is a particularly good medium to communicate the "epic change" of our environment.

"Opera has the sense of scale, and it has so many elements. It has dance, it has spectacle, it has music, it has story, it has poetry," Ruhl said. " There's something about the scale of it that makes sense to me."

The set design also reflects the theme of sustainability and environment. In collaboration with the MIT Media Lab, set designer Mimi Lien uses dish soap bubbles to shape some of the landscapes and weather elements. Bubbles are filled with helium to make them float, pumped with air to form snowy mountains, or blown across the stage with a specially-designed silent fan to evoke storms.

And with a few sprays of alcohol, the bubbles dissipate. "It's like a set that comes and goes, like the weather," Ruhl said.

"The Seasons" is co-produced with the Boston Lyric Opera. Its world premiere is part of the organization's ongoing initiative that aims to bring attention to climate action and sustainability, called "Rising Waters/Rising Voices."

When the BLO relocated to the Fort Point neighborhood in 2020, CEO Bradley Vernatter said the organization began engaging in conversations about what residents face in their daily lives. The area has experienced increased flooding and sea level rise as a result of climate change, which also impacts other Boston neighborhoods.

" Performing arts is a part of and in response to what's happening in our direct community," Vernatter said.

Aside from "The Seasons," BLO will showcase a May production of "Noah's Flood" composed by Benjamin Britten which recounts the biblical story of Noah and the Ark. The production will feature hundreds of youth singers and musicians from Boston schools and arts organizations.

Offstage, the BLO is organizing events and showcases that support the initiative's goal to increase climate awareness. In October, they organized a panel that included staff from Boston's Office of Climate Resilience and local artists who center environment and climate in their work.

Climate change advocates have told BLO's Artistic Director Nina Yoshida Nelsen that this issue is less of a science problem, but a storytelling problem.

" We're an organization that tells stories for a living," Nelsen said. "  We're able to put it on our stage and tell that story in perhaps a different way than people are normally used to seeing."

Nelsen said they plan to expand the initiative beyond this season, and see the work as the art organization's responsibility to communities.

" The conversation about climate, climate resilience, awareness, climate change is not going to go away," Nelsen said. "It's part of our responsibility."

Boston Lyric Opera's "The Seasons" runs March 12-16 at the Emerson Paramount Center.