A theater company uses choir to look at people

The choir, in its origins in ancient Greece, served to explain what a solitary performer could not express and offered a mirror for audiences.

For the innovative theater company Carmina Slovenica, the concept of a choir also provides a broader political lens - to show how an individual can be swept up in the violence of a group.

The Slovenian ensemble has taken the concept to New York with performances of its intellectually challenging Toxic Psalms at Prototype, a festival of experimental opera whose third edition opened on Thursday.