Set in one of the most dynamic public spaces for observing New York City and its multitude of intersecting lives, The Mile-Long Opera invited audiences to traverse along the entire 1.5 miles of the High Line, enveloped by voices from 1,200 singers heard throughout the entire series of pathways, interspersed with the sounds of the city at dusk.

With a rehearsal and production process that spanned two years, countless rehearsals, workshops and preliminary stagings at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, on the High Line and in community centers, rehearsal studios, and churches across all five boroughs, 38 community choirs and 250 professional freelance singers participated in the project led by Music Director Donald Nally and Co-Directed by Elizabeth Diller and Lyndsey Peisinger. Nearly 17,000 audience members experienced this free event in person.

The work focuses on the changing meaning of 7:00 pm, the time the performance began each evening, and a time that represents a transition from day to night, when people shift from one activity to the next. It is also a time traditionally associated with family, stability and home, yet today, those associations are less predictable. The diverse stories told in The Mile-Long Opera were inspired by first-hand interviews with New Yorkers from all walks of life. Their individual experiences reflected unique ways of coping with the contemporary condition—anxiety, humor, nostalgia, vulnerability, joy, and outrage—that together form a biography of 7 o’clock.