Second Annual LET'S CELEBRATE Holiday Opera Series to Return to Boston in November

White Snake Projects will follow up its fall mainstage production of MONKEY: A Kung-Fu Puppet Parable with the second installment of Let's Celebrate!, an annual series comprising four 20-minute operas that supplement traditional holiday programming with stories that more closely mirror the demographics of the Boston area and its diverse community. This season's operas expand the meaning of celebration to include not only holiday festivities, but also the intersection of identities: gender, race, culture, LGBTQ, and/or religion. Each performance will follow a free pre-show panel discussion about the joys and challenges of intersectionality during the holidays.
 
“Our beautiful Boston community is teeming with global influences and a motley array of cultural celebrations during the holiday season,” explains Cerise Lim Jacobs, Founding Artistic Director of White Snake Projects. “For many people, especially those whose identities intersect, the holidays can be especially triggering. From a queer person of color in the process of transitioning while celebrating Kali the Hindu goddess to the weaving of Chinese-Mexican cultures at an American Thanksgiving dinner, we hope these stories shared through music will reflect the myriad ways that families share differences and find solace in each other.”
 
My Little Coqui celebrates Puerto Rico's endemic tree coqui frogs. Written by Puerto Rican composer Iván Enrique Rodriguez (b. 1990), this opera tells the tale of children in Puerto Rico surviving a once-in-a-century hurricane and flood when they are transformed by a magical river spirit into little frogs that sing every night.
 
Jo Dooba So Paar celebrates Eid al Fitr, the breaking of the fast at Ramadan. Written by Boston-based Omar Najmi (b. 1987), this opera is set during a family gathering to celebrate Eid al Fitr when a young man's heart breaks when he learns his friend, for whom he has feelings, is marrying a woman and leaving the ambiguous love they have for each other.
 
Kali, a celebration of the festival of the Hindu goddess of death and rebirth, is written by Brookline native Avik Sarkar (b. 2001). As a queer person of color in the process of transitioning and a first-generation immigrant, Sarkar strives to promote social justice and activist efforts through her work. Kali is about a young man transitioning into womanhood, who draws on Kali's strength and magic to destroy their old self and be reborn a woman. 
 
Completing the program is Tamale Dumpling, a celebration of a multicultural Thanksgiving family melding Mexican and Chinese traditions. Written by Stephanie Chou, this opera is about a young Chinese woman who brings home her Mexican fiancé at Thanksgiving to the great consternation of her traditional Asian family.
 
White Snake Projects' 2023-24 programming is supported by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mass Cultural Council, the Boston Cultural Council, Reopen Creative Boston Fund, administered by the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture and the Ditson Fund.
 
About White Snake Projects       
White Snake Projects (WSP) is an activist opera company making mission-driven work that unites artmaking with civic practice. It envisions a world where the power of opera expands our collective understanding of community and transforms lives through creative storytelling. The company's most recent efforts have been devoted to the live digital productions of the Pandemic Trilogy: Alice in the Pandemic addressed the disproportionate strain of COVID-19 on communities of color and essential workers; Death by Life explored long-term incarceration and institutionalized racism; and A Survivor's Odyssey dealt with the ongoing crisis of sexual and intimate partner violence. A critical element in the exploration of these themes is the establishment of authentic connections with thought leaders in social justice to ensure that the company's creative work lives in an ecosystem of activism. WSP sees opera not just as performance, but as performance with purpose, a vibrant and vital art form that is also a champion of change. WhiteSnakeProjects.org
 

Program + Ticketing Info:                                                                                                                        
 
Let's Celebrate!
Saturday, November 18th at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
(free panel discussion one-hour prior to performances)
Emerson Paramount Center's Jackie Liebergott Black Box, 559 Washington Street, Boston, MA.
Tix: Tickets: Pay- $0+. To reserve, visit WhiteSnakeProjects.org or call Emerson Theater's Box Office at (617) 824-8400.
 
Program:
Four 20-minute operas:
My Little Coqui (Iván Enrique Rodriguez)
Jo Dooba So Paar (Omar Najmi)
Kali Puja (Avik Sarkar)
Tamale Dumpling (Stephanie Chou)
 
Creative Team:
Director: Laine Rettmer
Music Director: Tianhui Ng
Costume Designer: Rebecca Shannon Butler
Lighting Designer: Nate Weaver
Director of Innovate: Curvin Huber
CGI Designer: Senia Novak
Projections Consultant: Pamela Hersch
Executive Producer: Cerise Lim Jacobs/White Snake Projects

Cast:
Erin Merceruio Nelson – soprano 
Chelsea Baccay – soprano 
Megan Roth – mezzo-soprano 
Jeannette Lee – mezzo-soprano 
Joel Clemens – baritone 
TBA - soprano
Michael Gonzales – tenor 
Nadia Ruberg – child soloist
 
Sung in English
 

To post a comment, you must register and login.