In A Grove
"Part murder mystery, part psychological séance... the highlight of this year's Prototype Festival. Metropolis Ensemble's shimmering performance contributed to the dreamlike unreality."
— The New York Times, Best Classical Music of 2025
From First Conversation to Best of the Year
In December 2025, The New York Times named Christopher Cerrone's In a Grove one of the best classical performances of the year—alongside the New York Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic.
The opera began as a conversation on a screen porch in 2015. Over the next decade, Metropolis provided workshops, a world premiere recording, and finally the New York premiere production.
This is how we work: early investments, sustained commitment, world-class execution.
“Cerrone’s coolly caressing music, with its eerie haze of electronic and acoustic textures, deepens the mystery and leaves listeners suspended between ambiguity and wonder.”
2015 – 2025
2015 | THE IDEA
Composer Christopher Cerrone—a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Invisible Cities—and Metropolis Artistic Director Andrew Cyr start talking about Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's 1922 short story "In a Grove," the source for Kurosawa's Rashomon.
What if it became an opera? What if memory itself became unreliable?
Metropolis commits to developing the work.
2017 | FIRSTS
Early scenes premiere at Metropolis's new incubation space, Rivington. For the first time, Cerrone and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann hear their characters with live singers and instrumentalists.
The risk: investing in a work years before anyone else will touch it.
2018 | CONTINUING SUPPORT
A developmental series at Metropolis's Lower East Side venue. Invited presenters, funders, and peers experience Cerrone’s work and potential.
Rivington functions as a laboratory—low stakes, high experimentation, direct connection between artist and audience.
2019 | MORGAN LIBRARY
Workshop performance at the Morgan Library & Museum introduces the opera to new audiences and generates interest from co-commissioners.
The project builds momentum.
2019 | MASS MoCA
Development residency at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Director Mary Birnbaum joins the team. The opera's signature elements emerge: electronic voice processing, spare staging, dreamlike atmosphere.
“Mr. Cerrone’s score, for nine instrumentalists and electronics, opens with a wind-like wash of sound; the instrumental soundscape remains alluringly and dramatically hypnotic.”
2023 | THE RECORDING
Metropolis records the world premiere album at Shiny Things Studios and Bunker Studio in Brooklyn—not a live document, but a studio creation.
Co-produced by Cerrone, engineer Mike Tierney, and Andrew Cyr, the album uses overdubbing, multi-tracking, and close-micing to build something new.
The New York Times names it one of the Best Classical Recordings of 2023.
“A taut, mesmeric soundworld... four excellent singers, combined with a subtle-hued Metropolis Ensemble, bring the story grippingly alive.”
“An engrossing and complete experience... Metropolis articulates his economical writing with vivid nuance.”
“Vividly produced... not a mere document of the premiere, but a creation of its own... commanding attention until the end.”
“An immersive and deeply hypnotic piece of sonic storytelling.”
“A mesmerizing debut... benefits from the meticulous playing of Metropolis.”
“Mesmerizes from start to finish.”
HEAR THE ALBUM
2025 | PROTOTYPE
Fully staged New York premiere at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Part of the PROTOTYPE Festival, co-presented by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE.
Metropolis Ensemble performs (Luke Poppel, conductor).
All five performances sell out.
The team:
Director: Mary Birnbaum
Scenic: Mimi Lien
Lighting: Yuki Nakase Link
Costumes: Oana Botez
Sound: Kristian Tchetchko
Andrew Cyr, Metropolis artistic director
The cast:
Paul Appleby
Mikaela Bennett
John Brancy
Chuanyuan Liu
“The highlight of the festival was Christopher Cerrone’s In a Grove, a haunting psychological thriller.”
“All in all, In a Grove is the best of what modern opera can be—engaging, innovative, and deeply meaningful.”
“This is exactly the sort of work the opera world should be programming.”
“The production triumphed.”
2025 | BEST OF THE YEAR
May 2025: The New York Times includes In a Grove in "The Best Classical Music of 2025, So Far."
December 2025: Confirmed as one of The Best Classical Performances of 2025.
Metropolis Ensemble. New York Philharmonic. Vienna Philharmonic.
Same list.
"Metropolis Ensemble's shimmering performance contributed to the dreamlike unreality."
— The New York Times
The Opera
A man is found dead in a grove. Through shifting, contradictory testimonies, we hear from a woodcutter, a priest, a policeman, an outlaw—and the murdered man himself, speaking through a medium.
Set in a fire-scorched Oregon forest in the 1920s, In a Grove asks: How do we construct truth from memory? How does the harm we believe we have inflicted continue to live in us?
Cerrone's score transforms voices through reverb, pitch-shifting, and granulation—suggesting memories that are flawed, foggy, or wrong.
This Is Metropolis
We said yes before the opera existed.
We gave it a workshop before anyone else would program it.
We produced a recording that became a creation of its own.
We brought it to New York with a world-class ensemble and sold-out houses.
Ten years. The right resources at the right moments. Artists supported at the level their work deserves.
There Are More Stories Like This One
Help us tell them.
CREDITS
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Composer: Christopher Cerrone
Librettist: Stephanie Fleischmann
Director: Mary Birnbaum
Music Director: Raquel Acevedo Klein
Associate Conductor: Luke Poeppel
Ensemble: Metropolis Ensemble
Scenic: Mimi Lien
Lighting: Yuki Nakase Link
Costumes: Oana Botez
Sound: Kristian Tchetchko
Cast: Paul Appleby, Mikaela Bennett, John Brancy, Chuanyuan Liu
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Conductor: Andrew Cyr
Producers: Christopher Cerrone, Mike Tierney, Andrew Cyr
Label: In a Circle Records
Cast: Lindsay Kesselman, Chuanyuan Liu, Andrew Turner, John Taylor Ward
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Los Angeles Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Metropolis Ensemble, Raulee Marcus & Stephen Block, Judy & Allen Freedman, Mass MoCA, Morgan Library & Museum, Mahogany Opera, ICA London, University of Miami Frost School of Music, Mannes School of Music