The Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet Theater will present “An American Dream” at 7:30 p.m, Feb. 2-3 in the Musical Arts Center. The opera tells the stories of two families — one Jewish and one Japanese — who faced discrimination and were forced to leave their homes during World War II.
Jack Perla composed the opera with a libretto by Jessica Murphy Moo, originally commissioned by the Seattle Opera. Music Without Walls and Bill Holab Music are the opera’s publishers.
In 2011, the Seattle Opera started the Belonging(s) Project, which asked residents to describe an item they would take with them should they be forced to leave their home and explain its importance. In this endeavor, the company heard several stories related to the internment of Japanese Americans in 1942. Perla and Moo were tasked with tying these stories together to form an opera. One told a story about a Japanese-American woman who had been imprisoned in west-coast internment camps as a child, and the other was of a German American woman who escaped Nazi terror to come to the United States.
Since its premiere in 2015, “An American Dream” has been performed in Hawaii, Chicago, IL, Anchorage, AL and other opera houses across the nation.
Audiences who wish to learn more about the history and stories behind the opera are welcome to attend the Opera Insight Lecture held before each performance at 6:30 p.m. on the mezzanine level of the Musical Arts Center.
The performance will be in English with English subtitles. Tickets are available on the Jacobs School of Music website. Student tickets are $10.
