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Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, meant to make us squirm as they uncover our insecurities and the faults in our materialistic facades.

"Fire Shut Up in My Bones," the work of jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard and writer-director Kasi Lemmons, was the first opera by a Black composer or librettist to reach the Met stage.

From this kernel, Saariaho and her librettist, Finnish novelist Sofi Oksanen, developed the scenario, which has 13 singing or speaking roles: seven at the school and six at the wedding banquet.

“In this art form, we want to try to explore what something felt like,” the librettist says.

“When the heart speaks, whether in China or Holland,” Puccini wrote to one of his “Turandot” librettists, “it says only one thing, and the outcome is the same for everyone.”