Dito van Reigersberg, Divya Maus, Carla Duren, Ben Moss, Kirstyn Cae Ballard, Barrie Lobo McLain, Ángel Lozada, Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Onyie Nwachukwu, Jonathan Christopher, Jonny-James Kajoba, and Brian Flores Photo by Ben Arons

The current production purportedly seats almost double the number of audience members in the new space (which has been beautifully reconfigured by Krit Robinson, who also designed the set and provided the original artwork), and composer/librettist Heather Christian has added fresh material. I cannot say what has been gained or lost in the transition from Ars Nova, but I found the Signature iteration profoundly moving in both its intimacy and artistry.

With a nod to Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, Christian has composed a ninety-minute oratorio, built upon the operatic conventions and classical choral work around secular themes. The subject of the piece is time, which–according to a program note–is explored "on the three scales: The Quantum, the human, the cosmic." The first section (sung mostly in Latin) incorporates what might be described as New Age gobbledygook. For instance, the solemn opening includes the lines (in translation): "Without button/ the line will continue to roll out/ forever/ who remembers anymore/ what begin means/ as nothing has ever risen from the/ pure nothing/ without heat/ or water."

The second section integrates a series of "harvested memories" and verbatim voicemail messages, such as "Baby, call me before you are leaving," and "I am a veteran, I have fallen on some bad luck I ask you to look into the kindness of your hearts and help me." The final section, by contrast, references cataclysms, combustible gases like hydrogen and helium, and volcanic eruptions.

Reading the libretto is akin to poring over a Dadaist text or a poem by Gertrude Stein (whose libretto for the opera Four Saints in Three Acts includes in its prologue, "Four saints prepare for saints it makes it well well/ fish it makes it well fish prepare for saints"). Yet, the experience–if one gives over to it–is utterly transfixing and transporting.

Director Lee Sunday Evans stages the piece throughout the auditorium. At times, the voices of the twelve supremely gifted singers, are presented in counterpoint, ricocheting across the space. (Ben Moss provided the exquisite music direction.) At others, the gorgeous harmonies and stirring percussive rhythms embrace us with their intoxicating musicality. (Nick Kourtides's excellent sound design admirably produces the theatre equivalent of Dolby Surround.) It is a richly aural encounter in which the music produces its own dramaturgical meanings.

This is not to imply that the piece lacks theatricality or drama. Indeed, rarely have I felt so immersed in a performance and so viscerally connected with the performers. Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew's dramatically striking lighting has something to do with this, as do the performers who often engage audience members with direct and hypnotic eye contact. It is a strange but wonderful sensation to attend the theatre and feel seen.

In a press release, Christian explains a central motivation behind the work: "What I've tried to do is create a container for multiple very personal narratives, that an audience member could latch onto–depending on where they're sitting, depending on who they are. It's not about telling a very objective story, but sewing together meaning in a different way with the people in the room."

I did not read the libretto until after the performance–and ushers helpfully provided a link to access it as we filed out of the auditorium–but my primary takeaways and lasting images are not evident in the printed version. Among these is a cloud-like-sphere dangling on a wire that nearly touched the stage in the beginning of the performance. It glowed like a celestial orb, its light sometimes shimmering and pulsating. In the course of the evening, it ever so gradually lifted to the ceiling. Was this cluster of puffed cloth supposed to be the universe before the Big Bang? Did it represent a pulsing, beating heart? Perhaps it was a manifestation of gaseous elements waiting to explode? Whatever it represented, I was mesmerized by its mysteriousness as the performers incorporated it into the ritualized event.

Another indelible impression is of a woman sitting directly across from me in another section of the auditorium. Not only did she suggest a lack of engagement, but she resolutely rested her head against the wall and willfully slept through a good part of the performance. The image brought me back to childhood Sundays as church parishioners around me were enraptured by the hymns and impassioned sermons. I was bored to tears. Art, like religion, powerfully reveals the complexity of human emotions and responses and the varied effects they have on all living, breathing, and feeling things.