If you could be a dead guy, what kind of dead guy would you be? So sang composer Dave Malloy to Brittain Ashford June 29. It was a fair question. After all, the show was called Ghost Quartet, and they were performing it at Green-Wood Cemetery surrounded by real-life headstones. It was part of a three-night performance of the piece, which is a song cycle where four friends tell each other ghost stories. 

See photos from the spooky evening below. 

The evening was produced by Death of Classical, which presents music and opera in unconventional settings. It reunited Malloy with cast members of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, Ashford and Gelsey Bell. All three performers, along with Brent Arnold, sang and played multiple instruments on the stage. The foursome first performed Ghost Quartet at the Bushwick Starr in 2014; they've performed it periodically over the years, and even released two albums for Ghost Quartet (a studio recording and a live album from the McKittrick Hotel). So you can say the show has amassed a devoted following, eager to witness the next musical seance; after it was initially announced, the three performances of Ghost Quartet quickly sold out.

At Green-Wood, Malloy noted to the audience (some of whom were sitting in chairs and others were sitting in blankets on the slopes among the gravestones), that it was the 10th anniversary of Ghost Quartet, giving the evening a sense of occasion. He then immediately got behind a keyboard and brought the entire cast into the rousing "I Don't Know," which sets up the conceit of the evening: "I don't know if this is me at all. Or just some ghost of me." 

In the audience were those new to Malloy's work as well as ardent fans. Though hauntings was the theme of the evening, Ghost Quartet wasn't just downbeat songs. The audience's faces brightened with delight when the entire cast passed out whiskey shots to the crowd while singing the playful "Four Friends" (about spirits of the liquid courage kind). 

Then, as the sun set completely and the fireflies began to twinkle all around, the audience listened with rapt attention as, in "Monk," Malloy sang his love for Thelonius Monk, and how he believed Monk's ghost was still floating about (a gravestone behind Malloy lit up as he said so, which made this reporter gasp). 

There were moments of virtuosic playing and singing. Arnold rocked out on an erhu, a phrase I don't think has ever been written about that particular pensive instrument. Sustained applause followed Ashford's powerful rendition of the six-minute opus "Hero" (about a woman who witnesses someone dying in front of her). Finally, during "The Wind and the Rain," there is a moment that I won't spoil here, a moment that turned the show back onto the audience and made us appreciate the power of song to connect across time and dimension. 

At the Ghost Quartet, the ghosts were not something to be feared; like Malloy's entrancing, enveloping score, you want these spirits to haunt you. If you're lucky, they will follow you home.

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Photos: Ghost Quartet at Green-Wood Cemetery

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Ghost Quartet was directed by Annie Tippe and designed by Christopher Bowser.

Death of Classical will next produce an immersive event July 21 around the American debut of the Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra. The company will take over the Printemps store at One Wall Street and create an immersive theatre piece about the "Affair of the Poisons" during the reign of King Louis XIV.

Visit DeathofClassical.com.