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Nico Muhly’s New Opera
It’s called Dark Sisters, and it opens Nov. 2011
Nico Muhly (Photo: Peter Foley, via LIVEfromtheNYPL’s Flickr)
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Later this evening, at the Chelsea Art Museum, an official announcement will be made regarding a new American opera. But here’s what we know already: the Gotham Chamber Opera, Music-Theatre Group and the Opera Company of Philadelphia will announce Dark Sisters, composed by Nico Muhly with libretto by Stephen Karam. The opera will be conducted by Neal Goren and directed by Rebecca Taichman.
The three organizations will co-produce Dark Sisters, set to open in November 201 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College. The cast will be headed by Caitlin Lynch and Kevin Burdette, with Kristina Bachrach, Jennifer Check, Eve Gigliotti, Brenda Harris, and Jennifer Zetlan.
According to a press release, “Dark Sisters follows one woman’s dangerous attempt to escape her life as a member of the FLDS Church (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints), a sect that split from mainstream Mormonism in the early 20th Century largely because of the LDS Church’s renunciation of polygamy. The male founders of the Mormon faith (Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, chief among them) have traditionally loomed large in American history; Dark Sisters puts the women of the FLDS sect front and center. The narrative draws inspiration from the flurry of media attention surrounding the two most infamous raids on FLDS compounds (the 1953 raid at Short Creek, AZ and the 2008 raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, TX) as well as the stories of the over 80 wives of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Set against a red-earthed landscape filled with revelations, dark prophets and white temples stretching towards heaven, Dark Sisters charts one woman’s quest for self-discovery in a world where personal identity is forbidden.”
Stay tuned, so to speak, for more information.