Underdog history comes to life through new music and old Irish songs in The Hunger by composer Donnacha Dennehy. It is an opera about the Great Famine of 1845-52, rooted in Asenath Nicholson’s harrowing first-person account in Annals of the Famine in Ireland. Featuring acclaimed ensemble Alarm Will Sound (Nonesuch Records at BAM, 2014 Next Wave) and celebrated Irish folk singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, The Hunger imagines soprano Katherine Manley as Nicholson and Ó Lionáird as the voice of the voiceless,…