Vermont native Anaïs Mitchell’s new album, The Brightness, is chock full of nuance and excitement. Even when working with spare instrumentations and simple chords, Mitchell’s voice fills the musical space with her strong lyrics and deliveries. As opposed to her previous studio work, here she is more interested in lighter orchestrations, focusing more on her voice, words and guitar playing. This usually is more than enough, and the addition of some well-placed backup singers and a cello or two makes the presentation more thrilling.

Still, I have to wonder, when listening to tracks such as “Your Fonder Heart” and “Out of Pawn,” how constructed and artistically molded is Mitchell’s voice, and how much of it is her physiology? Does she want to sound so similar to a whiny old lady? How important is the sound to her? Or, to us?  I think one major reason I enjoy many singers is because of the individuality of their deliveries. Mitchell’s voice is fragile and twisting, roughed up by nasal “au” and gruff “er” pronunciations. She occasionally speak-sings and takes advantage of the full range of her voice.

Her song “Hades & Persephone” offers an interesting window into Mitchell’s current project — a  “folk-opera” called “Hadestown,” based on the story of two less-than-thrilled lovers. The show opened November 29 and will last through Sunday, Dec. 9 in various locations in Vermont, including Middlebury College.

I wonder, though, what a “folk-opera” means, and how much of the work is just Mitchell singing while other people perform stage duties. Her work is so individualized and built on personal strength that I am uncertain as to how she would handle a staged situation, or even writing for other people who are the center of attention. I am not suggesting she is an egotist, but that writing for oneself is much different than writing for another. How does such a person communicate such internalized detailing? Only by seeing the opera will we be able to find the answers to these questions.