Welcome back Offred, the Commander, Aunt Lydia, and Serena for a workshop reading of Dan Schlosberg’s new arrangement of The Handmaid’s Tale, the 2020 opera by the Danish composer Poul Ruders. The list of adapters of Margaret Atwood’s all-too-prophetic dystopian novel of 1985 is considerable. In their niche, Ruders and his librettist Paul Bentley bear comparison with the very best of them. But it’s likely their Handmaid frightens a lot of traditional horses; revivals to date have been few. So there’s room for a more economical version, and Schlosberg would be just the fixer. This is the lad who slashed the orchestra for Beethoven’s Fidelio to a combo of pianos, horns, and cellos (two each), plus percussion, and recoded Richard Strauss’s Salome instrumentals for eight clarinets and two percussionists. Crazy! His take on Ruders is sure to rock. That said, Banff’s not exactly Grand Central Station, and the workshop, while free, is sold out. Nevertheless, a mental note is in order. We’ll keep you posted. —Matthew Gurewitsch