Where did the idea of creating these projects came from?

So probably out of my curiosity and out of looking at this world, it was, I think, it was November 2015, and I was preparing my next album with Il Pomodoro, and we had all these obscure, forgotten, long-lost arias, Neapolitan, Belcanto arias.

And I was singing, and they were very vocal-oriented, very... flourished very decorative arias and there was this terrorist attack that happened in paris and it was in a journalist office it was in a for newspaper and the news came across my phone and here i am going and i was like oh like what's the connection to this music that i love but how is it speaking to today's world and then i came across um some of the other arias that were in there, like Dairo's Lament, La Shakyo Pyanga.

And I was like, these pieces speak so profoundly to the human condition.

There are some arias like Svelyate Viner Kore, that's all about I'm going to go to war, I'm going to get revenge, scenes of horror, scenes of woe from Jephthah.

You know, just witnessing the atrocity of destruction.

And they're so horrifying in the best, most amazing way.

And what about Eden? Like what happened? Where does the idea of Eden comes from?

The Wild Story is hosted and produced by NPSNJ Director of Programming and co-owner of Wildflower City, Kim Correro, and myself for the Native Plant Society of New Jersey.

[upbeat music] No prisoner be.

No prisoner.

No prisoner be.

No prisoner.

Where liberty herself abideth, no prisoner be.

No prisoner.

Mm-hmm.

Well, let's hear you singing from that opera now.

[singing] If I can stop- I shall not live in vain.

If I can breathe one year.

The air

Tell me about that as well.

Well, I think it's the perfect example of why, uh, opera is still incredibly important in society, because it's a chance to look in an extremity of emotion that is very alive about problems that we are encountering in our daily life, and music gives the space for people to actually feel what's happening.

They give the space to actually enter in and understand at a deep level why human beings act the way they do.

It's like what great art does.

What are we gonna hear first?

This is the first song of the cycle.

Uh, Emily was born into a world that was prose, church, and dogma, and society, and being a woman, but she thrived in her world of poetry.

So this first song is called They Shut Me Up in Prose.

[upbeat classical music] They shut me up in prose.

They shut me up in prose.

When a little girl, they put me in a closet because they liked me still.

Because they liked me still.