On Site Opera, a company dedicated to presenting site-specific productions of operas around New York City, will present The Immersive Coffee Cantata at The Lost Draft, a coffee shop in lower Manhattan, February 14-24.

The adaptation of Bach's Coffee Cantata will be performed in a new English translation by On Site Opera music director Geoffrey McDonald, who has also written a new orchestration.

A departure from Bach's usual liturgical cantatas, the Coffee Cantata is a humorous composition about a young woman, Lieschen, who loves coffee, and her father, who disapproves of her caffeine addiction. The on-site production will include an immersive element by guiding the audience through a coffee tasting during the performance.

The Immersive Coffee Cantata is directed by On Site Opera's new Artistic Director, Sarah Meyers, marking the company's first production under her direction. Soprano Christine Lyons stars as Lieschen, with bass-baritone Philip Cokorinos as her father Schlendrian. Tenor Bernard Holcomb completes the cast as the Narrator and Barista. Soprano Teryn Kuzma, bass-baritone Andew Rchardson, and tenor Josaphat Contreras are the covers for those respective roles.

On the new adaptation, music director McDonald explains: “Bach’s music is about as eternal as it gets, but comedy needs an update every generation or two. This updated text retains some of the very relatable constants of the original (what father-daughter relationships are free of exasperation?!) while rethinking those aspects that contemporary audiences might find dated or obscure. The goal here is: make it funny, make it singable, keep it Bach!”

Visit OSOpera.org.