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Eyes hidden behind his signature aviators, Storch took up a spot behind a Korg Kronos synthesizer and played along with a handful of the slinky pop and R&B hits he helped create in the early 2000s — not least Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River,” before which he very dramatically ripped a cig.

This is Kouyoumdjian’s first opera, but she has been writing string quartet music of theatrical power for the past decade and has been championed by the Kronos Quartet.

A new Kronos recording devoted to those works will be released in early March, and it features pieces with narration about war and peace in the Middle East that are grippingly theatrical.

Egoyan, who wrote the appreciative liner notes for Kouyoumdjian’s Kronos recording, is a talented opera director.

Coincidentally, the Kronos, with three new members, were in town last week at the Wallis for the Southern California premiere of Michael Abels’ “At War With Ourselves — 400 Years of You,” for string quartet, narrator and chorus.