SJSU Opera Theater presents a Double Bill:Francis Poulenc: La Voix Humaine Poulenc’s searing one-act opera follows a desperate woman through a final phone call with her departing lover. This haunting musical monologue transforms private anguish into visceral theater, as raw emotion unfolds through Poulenc’s lush orchestration and Jean Cocteau’s unflinching text. An unforgettable portrait of love and loss.

Byron Au Yong: Stuck Elevator.  Prompted by a true story, this sung-through opera follows a stuck Chinese food deliveryman through 81 hours trapped in a Bronx elevator. This haunting 81-minute musical hybrid transforms what it means to be trapped in America, as raw desperation unfolds through a collision of operatic singing, rap, and contemporary musical theater.

A new volume by acclaimed poet Kim Addonizio, whose work is known for its streetwise, unflinching explorations of love, lust, and mortality.

Set in locations from dive bars to Montparnasse Cemetery, from an ancient Greek temple to a tourist shop in Assisi, Exit Opera explores the ever-vexing issues of time, mortality, love, and loss, and considers the roles of art and human connection. Whatever their nominal subject—jazz, zombies, Buddhism, Siberian tigers—these poems make for a compelling mix of humor and pain, difficulty and solace. In a nod to Keats, one of the many fellow travelers in these poems, Addonizio invites us to “[inscribe] a few verses on whatever water / you can find” and assures readers that they are not alone in navigating the challenges and changes of mortal life.