Imagine yourself sitting on a crowded city sidewalk--any city--and become a voyeur for a few moments. The City Set is an intimate glimpse into several lives, historical, fictitious, and somewhere in-between. And like the life of a crowded city street, they come and go in the flash of eye, the briefest glimpse into the humanity of the thousands of strangers that surround us every day.

The City Set presents three operatic episodes in urban life past and present. First, The Context of Love Lives explores the inner conflicts and public writings of Elizabeth Bishop and Oscar Wilde-both humiliated and abused for their homosexuality, one publicly, one privately. We then move into Visionary, where we see a series of hallucinations brought on by a young man's deliberate overdose of Seconol and Stoli, recollected from a more mature vantage. We conclude with Anniversary, one woman's short stroll down memory lane while waiting at a sidewalk cafe for a date that doesn't show.

Created and performed by the Voyeur Theater Ensemble.

Rachel Carter, soprano
Edward Ficklin, words and music
Eric Filion, visuals
Lee Gregory, baritone
Jill Waycie, piano

Now in its second season, The Voyeur Theater Ensemble is a music-theater performing group dedicated to the future of opera - small, modern, relevant, accessible and a little unpredictable.