Verdict of Love at Austin Opera's Butler Performance Space

Austin Shakespeare presents the world premiere workshop of Verdict of Love, a new opera drawn from Nathaniel Hawthorne's final novel, The Marble Faun. Set in a Romantic vision of Belle Époque Rome, the story follows three young American artists drawn into the orbit of a spirited young Italian, whose friendship is shadowed by a mysterious stranger and ultimately erupts in murder. The workshop unfolds in two parts: a sung-through piano-accompanied Part One, and a staged reading Part Two featuring actor Y.A. Oza. The score is by Jeff Britting with libretto by Ann Ciccolella, and the cast includes Yuxin Liu, Paige Patrick, Lucas Hickman, Zhanqi Wang, and Piye Qin, with Vakhtang Zaalishvili as music director and pianist.