WBEZ Chicago

From Chicago headlines, an eminent composer births a new opera about Nazi-looted art
May 2024

Rare is the opera that tells a Chicagoan’s story. And while Before It All Goes Dark, a new work by the in-demand composer Jake Heggie, unfolds mostly in Prague, the protagonist is a middle-aged Vietnam veteran named “Mac” from Lyons, Ill.

Before It All Goes Dark follows a man seeking to reclaim artworks looted by the Nazis from a distant ancestor and coming to understand his own Jewish heritage in the process. It opens in Seattle this weekend before traveling to San Francisco and then Chicago on May 24 and 25.