For years, in parts of Chile, people rained from the sky.

During the Pinochet regime from 1973 to 1990, the bodies of the country’s “disappeared” were loaded into burlap sacks, weighted down, and thrown from aircraft into lakes or remote mountains. When poet Raúl Zurita — himself often in Pinochet’s crosshairs — learned of these death flights years later, he poured his horror into “INRI,” a long-form poem.

At the Chicago Symphony this week, Zurita’s verses become “Song of the Reappeared,” a 20-minute work for soprano and orchestra by Matt Aucoin. (It is the orchestra’s only premiere of the season, ungenerously scheduled in an inter-holiday week.) Singing the premiere was Julia Bullock, whose fluency in 21st century, Spanish-language works made it to the world’s largest operatic stage las

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