If your Christmas plans aren’t complete until you’ve got a performance of Handel’s Messiah in the diary then look no further than critically-acclaimed opera company Wild Arts (★★★★★ Opera Now, ★★★★ The Guardian) for this year’s festive fix.

Handel’s Messiah

Smith Square Hall

The final part of IN Series’ Monteverdi trilogy, Poppea brings the composer’s most famous and audacious final opera of love, power, sex, and betrayal to life inspired by the performance tradition of South India, and specifically Bharatanatyam dance. This landmark production, running March 14-30 at Dupont Underground, St. Mark’s Capitol Hill and Baltimore Theatre Project, is of one of opera’s undisputed masterpieces. IN Series’ production will be a collaboration with Indo-American choreographer Hari Krishnan, whose work brilliantly combines the aesthetics of this traditional dance form with contemporary movement and questions of gender norms, and will feature original dance music composed by sitar player Ami Dang, and mridangam percussionist Rajna Swaminathan. The work will be directed and conducted by IN Series Artistic Director Timothy Nelson and feature a cast of local favorites and international artists known for their interpretations of opera of the Baroque. The INnovātiō Orchestra, IN Series’ own period baroque band, will blend music of South India in an evening of whirling passion, music, poetry, and dance. Opening night will be a celebration of the Indian festival of Holi.

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Poppea

Dupont Underground

St Marks Capitol Hill

Baltimore Theatre Project

Voted as audience choice for IN Series’ 2019-20 season, this circus version of Rigoletto, complete with a circus band and bawdy new text by Bari Biern, became a victim of COVID-19, but before that, victim to 19th-century censors that found its exploration of the misdeeds of the powerful too dangerous for the public eye. The production will finally roar to life on the stage December 7-15 at the Goldman Theater DCJCC and the Baltimore Theatre Project. At once darkly devilish, toe-tappingly infectious, and horrifically funny, Verdi’s masterpiece is made intimate, in-your-face, and inescapably enjoyable under the big top, with a cast of fan favorites returning from IN Series’ 2023 production “The Promised End,” and led once more by Emily Baltzer.

Timothy Nelson

Events

Past events

Dec 9, 2025

Handel’s Messiah · Sinfonia Smith Square

14 - 29 Mar, 2025

Poppea · IN Series

Future and recently performed repertoire

Singer in Messiah by Handel

Sinfonia Smith Square

About

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