Mary Kouyoumdjian, Royce Vavrek, Laine Rettmer, Alan Pierson, Beth Morrison

Adoration

WEST COAST PREMIERE

Buy tickets

Price: $84
Genres: Music, Theater
Season: Winter/Spring 2025
DATE: FEB 19-20, 22-23
TIME: WED, THU & SAT, 8 PM; SUN, 2 PM
RUNTIME: Approx. 90 minutes
COUNTRY: USA

Join the conversation in the REDCAT LOUNGE

About

Adoration follows Simon, an orphaned high school student, as he grapples with his family history, racism, and intolerance in our digital age, in an adaptation of Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film. As part of a dramatic writing exercise, Simon’s teacher encourages him to appropriate details from a historical terrorist attack as an event perpetrated by his parents. When his story goes viral, Simon uses the hysteria within his community and on the internet to highlight how hate is a learned behavior, and the impact of hate on society. The fictional and actual circumstances of the loss of Simon’s family are revealed in fragments, only fitting together with the final revelation that the prejudices of Simon’s maternal grandfather led to his parents’ deaths. Presented in collaboration with LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects, this piercing contemporary opera tells two simultaneous narratives—a fictional story of violence and betrayal juxtaposed with real experience of family strife and the rejection of the other.

credits

Commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects, Trinity Church Wall Street, with lead commissioners Justus Schlichting and Charlotte Isaacs. Additional commissioning support provided by Susan Bienkowski.

Developed by Beth Morrison Projects in association with the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, Opera Department. Adoration was workshopped at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity as part of the 2023 Opera in the 21st Century Program.

Produced by Beth Morrison Projects in association with Trinity Church Wall Street.

Additional support is provided by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, and Visionary Women. This project was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Supported, in part, by an OPERA America Opera Grants for Female Composers award, the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The production of Adoration received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Fund.

LA Opera Off Grand productions are supported by a consortium of generous donors to LA Opera’s Contemporary Opera Initiative, chaired by Barry and Nancy Sanders.

Please note: Adoration contains mature content.

Presented in English with supertitles.

about the artists

Mary Kouyoumdjian is a composer with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. As a first-generation Armenian-American and having come from a family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, she uses a sonic palette that draws on her heritage, interest in music as documentary, and background in experimental composition to progressively blend the old with the new. Kouyoumdjian has received commissions for such organizations as the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alarm Will Sound, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the American Composers Forum/JFund, Roomful of Teeth, WQXR, REDSHIFT, Experiments in Opera, the Nouveau Classical Project, Music of Remembrance, Friction Quartet, Ensemble Oktoplus, and the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble. Her music has been described as “eloquently scripted” and “emotionally wracking” by The New York Times and as “the most harrowing moments on stage at any

New York performance” by New York Music Daily. Kouyoumdjian has taught at the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program, Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program, Columbia University, and is currently on faculty at The New School’s Mannes Prep program. Kouyoumdjian is proud to be published by Schott’s PSNY.

Instagram / Website

Royce Vavrek is a librettist and lyricist whose opera Angel’s Bone with composer Du Yun was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music. He is known for his diverse collaborations with composers including David T. Little (Dog Days, Am I Born, JFK), Missy Mazzoli (Song from the Uproar, Breaking the Waves, Proving Up), Ricky Ian Gordon (27, The House Without a Christmas Tree), Joshua Schmidt (Midwestern Gothic), Paola Prestini (Yoani, The Hubble Cantata) and Gregory Spears (O Columbia). Upcoming projects include Film Stills, a series of operatic monologues for mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti, directed by R.B. Schlather and composed by Du Yun, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly and Paola Prestini; Jacqueline with composer Luna Pearl Woolf; Song of America: Beyond Liberty created for Thomas Hampson with director Francesca Zambello; and a new opera with David T. Little through the Met/LCT commissioning program. Royce is co-Artistic Director of The Coterie, an opera-theater.