Date
February 24-26, 2022

Location
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco

Opera Parallèle
Soloists from San Francisco Girls Chorus

Program
Lembit Beecher: Sophia’s Forest

About
Sophia’s Forest explores both the lasting effects on families of the immigrant experience, and the ways in which children use their imaginations to deal with life challenges. The innovative opera tells the story of a young immigrant to the United States who survived a traumatic journey through the chaos of a civil war in her homeland. During the course of the opera, Sophia is seen as an adult remembering her childhood as a nine-year old recent immigrant to the US, and in flashback to a couple of years earlier, as a child escaping her homeland with her mother, Anna, 5 and sister, Emma.

A central part of the production are nine electronically-controlled sound sculptures placed throughout the performance space. The sound sculptures featured in Sophia’s Forest form part of the opera’s set as well as functioning as a large-scale musical instrument, blending with string quartet and percussion to create the musical landscape of the piece. The sculptures suggest the inner world of Sophia’s mind as she tries to process the trauma of her childhood escape from her homeland and the death of her sister. The sounds the sculptures create are a direct outgrowth of Sophia’s memories: bike wheels recall Sophia’s youthful adventures with her sister Emma, and wine glasses become a central part of her mother Anna’s life once the family moves to America. The sound sculptures were built in collaboration with the ExCITe Center at Drexel University, an interdisciplinary center for research and innovation that combines the arts and engineering.

Sophia’s Forest was first performed in September 2017 at Drexel University in Philadelphia by OP’s creative team.