A grim fairy tale, yes, but also a crazy-quilt “biomythography” transcending genre. Written, composed, costumed, and performed by the formidable Miami native and MacArthur Fellow Cécile McLorin Salvant, Ogresse revolves around a “big black beast” who dwells in the forest, eats human flesh, and eventually succumbs to a man who undoes her with his songs “soft and sweet.” In development for some years, Ogresse holds audiences spellbound, changing with every outing. Accompanied by a 13-piece orchestra, Salvant delivers the entire 90-minute score as a multi-character monologue, ranging unpredictably among the many styles—folk, Baroque, jazz, country—of which she is a past master. Ingredients flavoring Salvant’s witches’ gumbo include Vodou spirits of her father’s native Haiti; the true story of Sarah Baartman, a South African woman exhibited in European freak shows; and “fetishism, cycles of appropriation, lies, othering, and ecology.” —Matthew Gurewitsch