Sara Brown’s scenic designs for Mahler’s Song of the Earth bring the audience into an ephemeral world being reclaimed by nature.
Song of the Earth takes place in a single room inhabited across time by three figures: the Poet, who occupies the space shortly before his death; the Lover, who remains after him, suspended in memory; and the Mother, who lives in the present, grieving the loss of her child. Though they share the room, they exist in different temporal states, their lives overlapping without fully touching. Through Mahler’s songs and additional spoken text written by Anne Bogart, the work becomes a meditation on grief, memory, and endurance—ending not with resolution, but with continuation, as loss and life persist side by side.
Composed in the shadow of profound personal tragedy, Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde) is a meditation on nature, longing, and farewell. Presented in Schoenberg’s chamber arrangement, director Anne Bogart’s new production uses projections, light, and immersive staging to invite you into the emotional core of the music while crafting a vivid sensory experience of beauty, fragility, and impermanence. BLO’s Opera + Community Studios provides a 250-seat setting designed for immediacy, creating a rare opportunity to encounter Mahler’s farewell up close — fleeting, intimate, and unrepeatable.
Learn more at blo.org/song