Paul Dresher Ensemble, OPERA America's New Works Forum, Ensemble Ipse & First Look Sonoma Present the NY Premiere of BOTH EYES OPEN

The Paul Dresher Ensemble, OPERA America's New Works Forum, Ensemble Ipse, and First Look Sonoma present the New York premiere of Both Eyes Open, an experimental chamber opera by Brooklyn-based composer Max Giteck Duykers and Berkeley-based playwright Philip Kan Gotanda.

Taking place on Friday, January 13th at The Flea Theater, this work investigates the psychic scarring that Japanese Americans experienced during World War II and suggests paths toward healing. Both Eyes Open is helmed by director Melissa Weaver and conductor Benjamin Makino, and features baritone Suchan Kim; soprano Zen Wu; tenor John Duykers; Ensemble Ipse: clarinetist Christa Van Alstine; violinist Esther Noh; pianist Geoffrey Burleson; and guest performer Joel Davel on marimba lumina. Designers are Kwame Braun, Matthew E. Jones, Shinichi Iova-Koga, and Maria Christoff.

Both Eyes Open tells a haunting love story and tale of perseverance about a Japanese American farmer, Jinzo Matsumoto, and his wife, Catherine, who are incarcerated in an American concentration camp during World War II. Before leaving their farm, they bury a Daruma Doll on their land. According to tradition, these papier-mâché idols are given when embarking on a challenging endeavor or making of a promise. One eye is painted on the doll to symbolize the commitment, and if success comes, the doll receives its second eye and is burned ceremonially to release its spirit.

At the concentration camp in Rohwer, Arkansas, Catherine dies in childbirth due to inadequate medical facilities. Jinzo begins to question his belief in America, and when forced to sign a questionnaire declaring his loyalty to this country, he signs no-no, refusing to serve in the U.S. armed forces. Because of his decision, Jinzo is labeled a No-No Boy and is transferred to Tule Lake, a high security prison camp for those deemed potential enemies of the state.

After the war, a new Executive Order is issued and Jinzo is free to return to his former life; he goes home to Stockton, California to see his old farm. He discovers the new owner is not a white farmer as he had assumed, but a Japanese American woman, whose husband had been killed fighting for the U.S. with the all-Japanese American 100th Battalion in Bruyères, France. She angrily berates Jinzo for being a No-No Boy - a traitor - and refusing to fight while her own husband fought and died for Jinzo's right to live free.

Jinzo is broken. He has lost everything. He finds himself at the railroad tracks where he decides to end his life. Jinzo lies down on the tracks, when the Daruma Doll and the ghost of Catherine appear to guide him to a place of higher understanding. As the train strikes Jinzo, the world freezes. Silence, emptiness. Ma. We leave reality and enter the meta world of Daruma's Bigger Mind, able to understand the entire trajectory of Jinzo's life as a living history. We see the tumultuous world of today as a continuum of the "rich, rotting soil of fertile injustice." The chorus sings, "What will it grow?"

Major funding for Both Eyes Open provided by: National Parks Service's Japanese American Confinement Sites Program, California Humanities, J.A. Community Foundation, Jfund, New Music USA, Brooklyn Arts Council, OPERA America, and discretionary funds from the John A Hartford Foundation. This performance, part of OPERA America's New Works Forum, was made possible, in part, by a generous and deeply appreciated grant from the Mellon Foundation.

Both Eyes Open was collaboratively developed by Max Giteck Duykers, Philip Kan Gotanda, and creative team members from 2012-2022; ten developmental workshops held at Western Michigan University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, U.C. Berkeley, and the Paul Dresher Studios in Oakland, CA. Premiered at the Presidio Theatre, San Francisco, June 2022.

Friday, January 13, 2023 at 8pm
The Flea Theater
20 Thomas Street, New York, NY 10007
Admission: $30
Tickets: https://tinyurl.com/32pbk2v3
https://www.beo-opera.com

To post a comment, you must register and login.