My Last Duchess + The Clever Mistress

The Cutting Edge New Music Concerts Festival goes out with a bang, presenting a pair of fully staged one-act operas for the first time in the fest's 15-year history. Composer Theodore Wiprud's My Last Duchess features a libretto by Tom Dulack, based on Robert Browning's Romantic-era poem about a love affair gone awry in Renaissance Italy. Robert Sirota's The Clever Mistress evokes a different era of Italian history: Based on The Decameron, it focuses on medieval intrigue set into motion by a tricky young noblewoman.