Performer: David Govertsen

Kevin Puts effectively shapes the time-traveling structure with distinctive sound worlds as thirty dramatic vignettes unfold across a little more than an hour and a half.

Setting the opera in the backyard of a suburban house feels refreshingly honest: the ridiculous and simplistic tale of the evil witch, the prince and the maiden is rightfully returned to the arena of children's games, and adults look on indulgently, with a wink.

The Chicago Opera Theater pairs two one-act operas from 1943 - Viktor Ullmann's The Emperor of Atlantis and Carl Orff's The Clever One - in a program conducted by Francesco Milioto and directed by Andreas Mitisek.