Rhymes With Opera

Sun., May 16, 7 p.m., $10, The Fidget Space, 1714 N. Mascher St., rhymeswithopera.org.

by Emily Currier

opera

If you ask Baltimore's Rhymes With Opera, the genre is much more than stuffy melodrama. In 2007, composers Ruby Fulton and George Lam formed the company to capture the passion of opera in a more modern, relevant form. Fulton describes Book of Gazes, the company's current production, as "taking what you would see at a noisy show and mixing it with opera." Drawing on opera's fondness for torrid romance, Book of Gazes follows a love triangle among an abused young girl, her therapist and the therapist's boyfriend. Composer Jenny Olivia Johnson pays homage to cheesy '80s movies in the score, brought to life by experimental hip-hop quartet Soul Cannon. The performance will be set in the echoing warehouse of Kensington's Fidget Space, so swap your pearls for a set of earplugs — you might just find that opera can rock after all.

Sun., May 16, 7 p.m., $10, The Fidget Space, 1714 N. Mascher St., rhymeswithopera.org.