Opera spotlight: Two of NYC’s most exciting composers debut new works this week

Kate Soper, Here Be Sirens

On the heels of the premiere of her second major work, Ipsa Dixit (which ran February 3 and 4 at Dixon Place), contemporary-classical force Kate Soper presents a new suite version of her stunning first opera, Here Be Sirens, which was staged at Dixon in 2014. As a singer and writer (and a part of the vital composer-performer collective Wet Ink Ensemble), Soper is quickly becoming one of the most intellectually challenging and musically satisfying composers in town. Her Sirens is a deeply insightful and sometimes quite funny work for three female voices. Here sopranos Victoria Benson, Claire Myers and Devony Smith deliver Soper’s meditation on the plight of sirens, doomed to a life awaiting the shipwrecks that will bring them love. The piece is paired with the American premiere of Nicole Murphy’s The Kamikaze Mind, a similarly contemplative work about a man falling into a black hole, starring baritone Shane Brown. The fearless composer-conductor Whitney George leads the in-house Fresh Squeezed Opera orchestra for both works.

The LGBT Center, 208 W 13th St (212-620-7310, gaycenter.org). Friday, March 3 at 8pm; $15.