Mount Everest towers both literally and figuratively in our consciousness and culture, epitomizing the lengths to which man will go to test his physical limits. Noted explorer, anthropologist, and best-selling author Wade Davis illuminated the dangers inherent in challenging the mountain in one of the finest books written on the subject, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. And the Lyric Opera sets Kansas City’s sights on the 29,000-foot summit in its staging of Everest in November.

Davis, one of the National Geographic Society’s explorers-in-residence, prefaces the Lyric’s production with a discussion of his 2011 book and the aura of Everest. Into the Silence is the definitive story of a party of British adventurers who survived the trenches of World War I and went on to risk their lives on Everest in 1924. Two, including famed climber George Mallory, were lost on the expedition.

The Lyric’s November 11, 15, 17 and 19 performances of Everest represent the regional premiere and second-ever production of the opera, which dramatizes the ill-fated expedition that claimed the lives of eight climbers in 1996.