Lyric’s “The Listeners,” with Daniela Mack, Jonas Hacker, Nicole Heaston and the ensemble/Photo: Andrew Cioffi

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“The Listeners” is a new opera. It’s an orchestral masterwork composed by American Missy Mazzoli, who from 2018 to 2021 was the Chicago Symphony’s composer-in-residence. Mazzoli has created a bright and terrifyingly complex, often startling, soundscape. Her music demands all from the Lyric’s always superb orchestra under conductor Enrique Mazzola, and gets it.

The story, Mazzoli has said, grew out of her desire to develop a work around four “things” that deeply interested her: the American Southwest, cults, women in impossible situations and middle-aged women who are forced to act out of character. “The Listeners”’ libretto, by Canadian Royce Vavrek, is based on a story by his countryman, playwright Jordan Tannahill. It combines Mazzoli’s themes into a modern gothic tale centered on Claire Devon, whose unexceptional everyday life as a wife, mother and teacher is progressively wrecked when the sound of a hum—which her family and colleagues do not hear—overcomes her.

At first, her world shrinks as the hum, and her obsession with stopping it, alienates her from her husband, daughter and workmates. She is then drawn into a cult populated by others afflicted by the hum. It’s led by a charismatic genius who promises to convert the torturous hums in his followers’ heads into a beautiful tone that will heal and empower them.

It’s a relatively simple story, but it unfolds in a multitude of changing scenes that keep pace with Mazzoli’s score. The production’s stagecraft is a mesmerizing mix of vast projected images of characters singing, a clever moving set that literally frames the action within boxes, and some old-school opera tricks—such as a smoke machine that serves up a visual metaphor for a social world consuming itself.

The new work is arguably also a new, coarser course for opera. The libretto is laced with profanity that one imagines Vavrek meant, in enfant terrible mode, to leave the opera crowd aghast. It does not quite work, though. The sophistication of the score, of the production’s wonderful lead singers and ensemble, and of its set, are undermined by lyrics, story and character development that don’t match them.

Of course, operas often have dumb and overly telescoped stories that serve the music mostly by getting out of the way. That’s not the case here. The authors mean to offer a searing commentary on America’s fractious, toxic politics and culture—the dangerous anomie it stirs among those like “the middle-aged woman forced to act out of character.” But Vavrek’s libretto and Tannahill’s story, though brutish, are too derivative to deliver either outrage or insight.

The word “fuck” is sung often here, by several characters in different contexts, propelling action as dutifully as “amore” does in operas of the canon. “Fuck” is also a stage direction. Characters writhe in frustrated sex in bed or pushed up against walls—always joylessly nasty and, thank goodness, always interrupted in the act. Chorus members, playing unruly high schoolers, throw wads of paper at their teacher, Claire Devon, the opera’s lead character, and, spitting, call her “bitch.” They draw a huge dick pic over the entirety of their classroom chalkboard.

Lyric’s “The Listeners,” with Rachel Harris and Nicole Heaston/Photo: Cory Weaver

It’s not all repugnant. At times, the setting, words and action are staunchly and purposefully bland. Doggedly devoid of poetry, the language is cast in a familiar, contemporary argot of a nameless, under-cultured, mostly white, middle-class, seemingly quiet suburban community. Devon’s daughter is named Ashley, and her student lover is Kyle. The women have bad hairdos, and the men dress like they’re about to climb on a riding mower. That makes the town a lot like the stock locales of American horror films, from “Halloween” to “Candlewood”—peaceful but not altogether happy places, seemingly removed from the fearsome chaos of urban America. This America of cookie-cutter tract housing, where school delinquents toss paper wads and draw in chalk, presumably rocks harder when it’s shaken.

The depiction of the cult Claire Devon falls into, together with its leader and minions, is also by-the-numbers. Neither the plot nor the words sung offer any sign that the creators worked to dig into what really makes a cult tick or how cults affect the inner lives of their followers. “The Listeners” regurgitates a lazily conceived, unpleasant version of America that non-Americans, inundated with American movies and film, might hold in their heads.

The boilerplate, violent ways the opera’s community unravels are how many non-Americans might also see the United States unraveling. The drama would have been far more compelling if the story were simpler and focused on the mental and emotional lives of the characters in greater depth and understanding—or if it were complex in service of a more original vision.

But back to why “The Listeners” demands to be seen: the music.

Soprano Nicole Heaston, a Chicago native in her Lyric debut, originated the role of Claire Devon in Oslo in 2022, and reprised it in 2024 in Philadelphia. Heaston’s beautifully warm voice communicated the anguish and vulnerability of her character, even against a score that’s short on melody and often communicates the pounding chill of her condition.

The leads are uniformly strong. A Lyric vet, bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen uses his deep tone to charming, menacing effect, making a compelling, not-too-human modern Mephistopheles. Mezzo Daniela Mack, as the cult leader’s lover and secretary, delivers the opera’s most moving aria with sad grace.

The most stirring vocal moments in the opera, however, are delivered by the large ensemble, whose humming could scare a banshee—but leave it wanting more.

One last note: Following the creation of “The Listeners” opera, writer Jordan Tannahill turned his story into a novel that became a bestseller in Canada, and then into a well-reviewed dramatic series for television for the BBC Studios and Element Pictures. I haven’t read the novel or seen the series, but I assume that in each case Tannahill went deeper into every aspect of the story.

“The Listeners” at Lyric Opera House, 20 North Wacker, through April 11. More on performance times and ticketing information here.