a new opera

music by Justine F. Chen
libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann

director: Aya Ogawa
dramaturg: Cori Ellison
music director: Kelly Kuo

workshop: Manhattan School of Music
april 3–8, 2022

selected for West Edge Opera’s Aperture portfolio
recipient of Opera America’s
Female Composer Discovery Grant
supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation

recipient of Opera America’s New Work Exploration Grant

Framed by the ritual of a Taiwanese funeral, and threaded through with the myth of the Pleiades reimagined, this boldly theatrical new opera is inspired by composer Justine F. Chen’s powerful, complicated grandmother, matriarch of seven daughters. An exploration of the discordant legacy
of bitterness and resilience A-Ma can’t help but pass down to subsequent generations, Seven Sisters veers from the sublime awkwardness of caustic satire to wildly lyrical moments of emotional expansion via sounds ranging from the glamour of old Hollywood and 1950s Chinese cinema to Taiwanese folk music,
Peking Opera and kinetic, pulsating rhythms.

Epic, stylized and hyper-real, deeply moving and unflinchingly funny, Seven Sisters looks at the hard truths of a culture that demeans and disempowers women and asks: How does the next generation move beyond this inheritance, bridging a cultural chasm that privileges silence?