Anaïs Mitchell
"Flowers (Eurydice's Song)"
Playing at: Rockwood Music Hall (196 Allen St., L.E.S.)
Info: Tickets ($25) | Directions

Anaïs Mitchell’s new album Hadestown is more than a concept album. It's a full-blown performance piece. With a little help from her friends, the Vermont folk songstress is touring her twenty-track album as a folk opera. The opera is a traveling show and each city has its own unique cast. In New York, folk singer Amy Correia, Ben Knox Miller (of The Low Anthem), guitarist Jefferson Hamer, Jesse Elliot (of These United States), and American folk noir group Sometymes Why will be part of the two NYC Sings Hadestown performances on Monday night.

Mitchell’s album is based on the ancient Greek myth of the poet Orpheus and his doomed quest to rescue his wife Eurydice from the underworld. On the album, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver plays Orpheus; Greg Brown is Hades, Lord of the Underworld; and Ani DiFranco plays Hades’ strong-willed, subversive wife, Persephone. Mitchell sings the track above, “Flowers (Eurydice's Song),” in the role of Eurydice, the character whose metaphoric death propels Orpheus into “Hadestown.” Download "Flowers" above or “Wait For Me” below, a stirring plea from Orpheus (sung by Justin Vernon) to the messenger Hermes (sung by Ben Knox Miller).