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Opera generally greets a very specific clientele. Operatic performances tend to only grace the stages of large cities on a frequent basis and mid sized cities a couple times a year.  They’re expensive due to the their grand design with heavy production, stage craft, costumes, large casts, and full orchestras. Thanks tofragmentation some composers are composing shorter, smaller, more fiscally manageable chamber opera’s. There are still big budget opera’s, like Michel van der aa’s 2006 Afterlife,but for a poet like Emily Dickinson, all the grandeur of traditional opera might have seemed contrived. A chamber opera, however, matches. Eva Kendrick , a Boston area composer, took a concise slice of Dickinson’s life, a cast of ten, a piano, and only an hour of your time to explore the essence of Emily’s poetry.  Musically speaking, Emily was more tonal than I would have expected from a modern operatic production, but there are some nice harmonies and one fantastic moment with a 6-part stacked polyphonic monologue. The main  theatrical ‘action’ deals with a singular poem, If you were coming in the fall, and the many misinterpretations by suitors, friends, and family. The poets frustration in dealing with social constructs in conveyed as Emily only smiles when she’s writing, or showing her poetry to someone she respects.