HER | alive.un.dead (2020-2023)
Commission: Guerilla Opera
Supported by:
– OPERA America Commissioning Grant for Women Composers Award
– National Endowment for the Arts Grants for Arts Projects Award
– New Music USA Creator Development Fund
– Boston Foundation (and partners Barr Foundation and Dunamis Boston)
– Live Arts Boston Grant
Development Partners:
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
Mosesian Center for the Arts
Trinity Episcopal Parish, Newton Center
Cast:
HER/DOCTOR2 – high voice
HER2 – high voice
MUM/NURSE/ONE – high voice
DAD/DOCTOR/TWO – low voice
Ensemble:
baritone saxophone
percussion
violin
cello
Duration: 100 minutes
Libretto Reading: December 20 2020 | Guerilla Opera | Virtual
Concert Reading/Performance: July 14 2022 | Guerilla Opera | deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln MA
Staging/Technical Workshop: July 18 2022 | Guerilla Opera | Mosesian Center for the Arts, Watertown MA
Premiere: May 12 2023 | Guerilla Opera | Pao Arts Center
May 13 2023 (2 shows) | Guerilla Opera | Pao Arts Center
May 14 2023 | Guerilla Opera | Pao Arts Center
About the Opera:
HER | alive.un.dead is a concert-length multimedia surrealist opera following three generations of Asian women in a single family through the sacrifices they make in the name of love. Through birth and death cycles in the family and encounters in a space called the “In-Between”, these women expound on gender biases against women and explore the clash of Eastern and Western as a result of immigration and generational perspectives.
Composer’s Note:
HER | alive.un.dead is brings together so many of my interests and obsessions, many of which have been central pillars of focus for my creative energies for decades–existential philosophy, female ghosts and horror, the roles and identity of women, filtered Chinese-ness, immigrant stories, and generational trauma. Most directly, the ideas in HER | alive.un.dead stemmed from two previous operatic works. At the End of the End (2009) was a film-noir inspired work set entirely in the “In-Between”, in which several characters expound on the meanings of life, as experienced after dying. Generations (2011) was a split-stage production of four generations of women in a single family, set in both the times of the Korean war and Modern day, and based on the lives of my librettist-collaborator’s family.
In writing/composing this work as an Singaporean-Chinese-Peranakan woman, immigrant (to the US), second-generation (in Singapore), the only female sibling and the ‘black sheep of the family’, and internalizing the lived experiences of such, I have learned much about who I am, who I want to be, and the difficult roads the women in my family had taken for me to be here. I hope to one day meet them in the “In-Between”, and be united in our collective grit, strength and power.
In memory of my maternal grandmother, Lau Hong Im, with endless love, admiration and gratitude.
Guerilla Opera Premiere Production, Boston MA 2023
Cast
Sol Kim Bentley, HER/DOCTOR2
Nina Guo, HER2
Jeannette Lee, MUM/NURSE
Jiayin Shi, DAD/DOCTOR
Ensemble
Philipp Staeudlin, Baritone Saxophone
Mike Williams, Percussion (and Music Director)
Lilit Hartunian, Violin
Stephen Marotto, Cello
Design and Production Team
Emily Koh, Composer and Librettist
Mo Zhou, Stage Director
Saskia Martinez, Scenic Designer
Lindsay Hoisington, Costume Designer
Marie Yokoyama, Lighting Designer
Nuozhou Wang, Projections Designer
Mike Williams, Ensemble Director
Keithlyn Parkman, Associate Producer
Sarah Schneider, Artistic Programs and Production Manager
Aliana de la Guardia, Artistic Director
Jeannette Lee as Mum, Jaiyin Shi as Dad, Sol Kim Bentley as HER and Nina Guo as HER2 in Guerilla Opera’s world premiere production of “HER | alive.un.dead” by Emily Koh at the Pao Arts Center, Boston, MA. May 10, 2023. Photos by Timothy Gurczak.
Koh used a spare texture of violin, cello, baritone saxophone and percussion (drum kit, vibraphone, gong, and just enough cow bell), and extensively employed extended techniques to imbue every setting with its own colorful soundscape. She gave each vignette in Scene 9, a montage of scenes from childhood, its own distinct texture, highlighting the progression from a carefree infancy to a traumatic adolescence. Scratch tone, extreme artificial harmonics, and vibraphone vibrato heralded the transitions to the misty In-Between. While Koh’s writing has many strengths, the greatest must be her sense of timing. She timed sequences so that the characters (and audience) experienced the pivotal moments of the opera at the speed of life. These moments often had several minutes without dialogue and the thinnest texture from the band, but they contained the greatest emotional power.
The music deftly underlines every emotional twist. At times soaring and lyrical, at others gritty and forceful, Koh’s score strives for psychological balance: it reveals the hidden virtues of the opera’s characters as it lays bare their contradictions.
Guerilla Opera Workshop, Watertown MA 2022
Cast
Bizhou Chang – HER
Felicia Chen – HER2
Jeannette Lee – MUM
Junhan Choi – DAD
Ensemble
Philipp Staeudlin – baritone saxophone
Mike Williams – percussion
Subaiou Zhang Carter – violin
Stephen Marotto – cello
Design and Production Team
Emily Koh, Composer and Librettist
Mo Zhou, Stage Director
Nuozhou Wang, Projections Designer
Mike Williams, Ensemble Director
Keithlyn Parkman, Associate Producer
Sarah Schneider, Artistic Programs and Production Manager
Aliana de la Guardia, Artistic Director
Venue
Mosesian Center for the Arts, Watertown MA