The sixty-minute work is based on the 1908 opera by Azerbaijani composerUzeyir Hajibeyli, available on YouTube. You can’t miss its grand opera gestures which Qasimov, Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobson, however, condensed into an exquisitely focused version which retained the integrated perspective of western and Azerbaijani music. The original version's chorus and additional singers are here carried by Morris always strong dancers. Sung in the original language, super titles helped our understanding but also gave an inkling of the lush poetry and a quasi-transcendental concept of human love. Curious was the idea that love and suffering are inextricably connected; the very concept of passion, apparently, is painful.