Wade will likely be overturned, stripping women in much of the country of the right to make choices like the one outlined in this opera. Across the country, women’s reproductive rights are under attack, and experts on both sides of the abortion debate agree: A few months from now, Roe v. I would likely find this setup off-putting at any time, but at this particular moment, I find it wildly tone-deaf. It is unclear whether she knows or how she feels about her husband’s drinking and cheating. We hear that she is “strong,” that she makes a choice. Intentionally or unintentionally, it flattens and erases the experiences of the woman carrying the baby in the story, leaving her voiceless and out of the picture. This is an opera about a pregnancy and miscarriage told completely and entirely by a man and from his perspective. We’ll get to the positives in a moment, but let’s start by examining a big, glaring problem at the center of this work: the choice and framing of its subject matter. I did not like this opera, despite the fact that Du Yun’s orchestral score is fantastic and inventive, the production is of the highest quality, and Gunn’s performance Wednesday night was a tour de force. In program notes Gunn describes it as “a beautiful story of hope, sacrifice, surrender, death, and rebirth.” It follows a pregnancy that ends in stillbirth and explores the heart-wrenching, generous miracle of infant organ donation (in this instance a dead baby’s eyes are transplanted so that a living child can see).

The story is advertised as telling the tale of one man’s journey to fatherhood. On Wednesday night, every seat at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles was filled for the world premiere of In Our Daughter’s Eyes, a new one-man opera by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun, librettist/director Michael Joseph McQuilken, and baritone Nathan Gunn.Ĭommissioned and produced by Beth Morrison Projects and presented as part of LA Opera’s “Off Grand” series, the 70-minute work is the result of Gunn’s desire to “create a show about the journey from boyhood to manhood: an Odyssey for the modern man.” Du Yun gets top billing, but this feels very much like Gunn’s opera, his passion project, and a vehicle for his specific (and considerable) talents. Nathan Gunn in LA Opera’s In Our Daughter’s Eyes | Credit: Craig T.

La opera off grand