Move over, Will Shakespeare. Salvatore Sciarrino’s Venus and Adonis—subtitled “Shipwreck of a Myth”—gives the old romance a makeover to set Dr. Freud’s head spinning. Rather than linger over the goddess’s infatuation with a beauteous human huntsman, Sciarrino zeroes in on the monster—traditionally a boar—who in this retelling kisses and caresses him to death. For all the kink of the psychology (there’s more), Sciarrino’s sound world is one of spidery fragility, spun from murmurs, exhalations on the verge of silence, microtones, glassy glissandi, and other iridescent effects. And who, Sciarrino asks us in a whisper, is the winner here? Love or death? Kent Nagano leads the flamboyant countertenor Randall Scotting as Adonis, the bass-baritone Evan Hughes as the Monster, Layla Clarie as Venus, Kady Evanyshun as Cupid, and Matthias Klink as Mars, who pinches one of Cupid’s arrows to get Adonis out of the way. Intimations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream? —Matthew Gurewitsch