As a 19 year-old saxophonist, Wayne Shorter dreamed of writing an opera based on Euripides’ play Iphigenia in Aulis, about a young woman’s sacrifice to enable a nation to wage a war. Her choice to give her life to a patriarchal-militaristic agenda is a cautionary tale of how women have been programmed for millennia to accede to the wishes of men. Whether you recognize the name Iphigenia or not, the tale has repeated itself across time and history. Now at 86, the 11-time Grammy-winning composer and performer joins forces with Esperanza Spalding—the bassist/composer/vocalist and first jazz musician to win the Grammy Award for Best New Artist—to be the opera’s librettist and lead performer, having previously collaborated on the 2013 symphonic poem, Gaia.