The Prototype Festival’s Modern Classics

Amidst the general uncertainty of New York’s operatic scene, the Prototype Festival, an annual explosion of youthful energy spearheaded by Beth Morrison Projects and the experimental theatre space HERE, has built a clearly defined profile: brash, socially engaged, and substantially post-classical. This year’s lineup of seven productions, offered Jan. 6-17 at a variety of progressive venues, acknowledges the expanding ambitions of the singer-songwriter community with such shows as “Sága,” a plaintive theatrical song cycle presented by the Belgian indie band Dez Mona and the period-instrument ensemble Baroque Orchestration X (at National Sawdust). But three shows from classical composers are the most boldly innovative: each partakes of the dark, dystopian mood that saturates popular culture, and the news cycle.

The hardy souls who travelled to Montclair, New Jersey, in 2012 to see the first performances of David T. Little’s “Dog Days” know that those attending the New York première of the show (at N.Y.U.’s Skirball Center) will get a chance to experience the power of a modern classic. The fantastic original cast (including the Tony-nominated soprano Lauren Worsham) has reconvened to relay the shattering story, about an ordinary American family facing starvation and moral collapse in the midst of an unspecified apocalypse. The trenchant but elegantly phrased libretto is by Royce Vavrek—the indie Hofmannsthal—who has also collaborated with the eclectic young composer Du Yun for “Angel’s Bone,” a world-première work (at the 3LD Art & Technology Center) which uses a fablelike tale of angels coming down to earth as a metaphor for the real-life problem of human trafficking. There’s a distinguished import as well, from the gifted Irish team of the composer Donnacha Dennehy, whose vibrantly post-minimalist music has a kinship with Little’s, and the playwright Enda Walsh (“Once”): “The Last Hotel,” a grim parable about assisted suicide, in its U.S. première (at St. Ann’s Warehouse). Might next year’s festival include a comedy? ♦