Until the nineteenth century, audiences and critics considered opera the highest form of art. Because it combines drama, poetry, music, dance and rhetoric, opera was seen as the most perfect synthesis of arts with which to move the passions, engage the mind and delight the senses. Rich and poor, intellectuals and common folk alike enjoyed going to the opera, which was as popular then as movies are today. In our time, opera companies are reluctant to perform early works because they believe audiences have changed; that the stories and music of the past have lost their resonance. We don’t agree. Helios strives to resurrect these less-known masterpieces by combining creative, modern staging with energetic period musical performance. We bring together talented young artists from across the northeast to create for our audiences an entirely new experience of opera. Early opera can be powerful, thrilling and relevant today: these pieces united kings, poets, soldiers and shoemakers — we invite you to see why.