Pulitzer
Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa
and composer Susie Ibarra bring the avant-garde chamber opera “Shangri-La” to Union College's
Yulman Theater on Thursday, Feb 3, at 7:30 p.m.
This
one-night-only workshop performance is free and open to the public.
“Shangri-La”
explores the pervasive tourism sex industry in Southeast
Asia and the resulting widespread poverty and HIV infection in the
region.
The
story is told from many different points of view: the Thai women working as
prostitutes and their families, western tourists and solicitors, and a “metaphysical
detective.”
One
ambition of the opera is to create awareness on issues like human rights, HIV and
AIDS.
“We
are thrilled to bring to campus a cutting-edge artistic endeavor that deals with
global issues and transcontinental themes,” said organizer Ed Pavlic, associate professor of English at Union
Komunyakaa was inspired after reading articles about men from the West traveling
to Bangkok, immersing
themselves in lifestyles filled with fantasy, sometimes unable or willing to
return to their everyday lives.
A collaborative
effort, Komunyakaa wrote the libretto and Ibarra wrote the original score, which
incorporates jazz, blues and Thai folk music. It will performed by nine opera
soloists and seven musicians from New
York City. This is a contemporary piece with vocalists
singing with operatic diction into cell phones. Thursday's show will mark the third performance of this opera.
Komunyakaa is a professor at Princeton University. He is perhaps best known for
his work, Neon Vernacular (1993),which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
The work also garnered the Kingsley Tufts Award for poetry, the William
Faulkner Prize and was a finalist for The
Los Angeles Times book award. His book,
Talk Dirty to the Gods, became a finalist for the National Book Critics
Circle Award. He has also written librettos for the operas Testimony and Slip Knot.
Modern percussionist and composer Ibarra is based
in New York City.
Her music is considered avant-garde and experimental, drawing on a variety of
influences such as jazz, improvisation, classical and Southeast Asian gong
music. She performs with her trio, quartet and Electric Kulintang
Ensemble. Her work has brought her to the Weill
Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy
Center, the Lincoln Center
and Alice Tully Hall.
The
show is sponsored by Union's East Asian
Studies program, Africana Studies, UNITAS and Women's
and Gender Studies.