Featuring the JMU Opera Theater
Music by Philip Glass
Libretto by Arthur Yorinks
Based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe’s famous horror story has fascinated poets, dramaturgs, and composers for decades. American opera’s most influential 20th-century composer has transformed a gothic tale by a 19th-century master of the macabre. The result is spellbinding! Premiering in 1988, the opera is one of Glass’ most popular, and the hauntingly beautiful music captures every nuance and blood-curdling nerve of Poe’s story. When a man visits his ill childhood friend, Roderick Usher, he is shaken by the foreboding sense of evil that pervades the household’s inhabitants. His attempts to understand and address the literal and figurative “illness” that permeates Usher’s house fail at every turn, and he is unable to deter Usher, his sister Madeline, and the house itself from their swift descent into the abyss. Contains adult content.

Held at the Mainstage Theatre. Tickets:
Regular: $27
Subscriber: $25
JMU Fac/Staff: $26
Senior (62+): $26
Students: $14