February 26, 2020
by Falling James
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In 2015, The Industry commissioned several brilliant composers to create Hopscotch, an L.A.-centric, multipart opera that was staged inside two dozen taxis and cars. Now the local company returns with its first independent world-premiere work since Hopscotch, with the debut of Sweet Land.
Described as “an opera that erases itself,” Sweet Land is an ambitious project by composers Du Yun (who won a Pulitzer for Angel’s Bone) and the Navajo Nation’s Raven Chacon with librettists Douglas Kearney and Aja Couchois Duncan, and co-directed by Cannupa Hanksa Luger and The Industry’s Yuval Sharon. With themes about immigration and colonization, the opera centers on a procession through the park and a feast between a “host” community and an “arrival” community, with a train symbolizing the effects of Manifest Destiny.
L.A. State Historic Park, 1724 Baker St., downtown; Sat., Feb. 29, 8 p.m.; Sun., March 1, 5:30 p.m. & 8 p.m.; through Sun., March 15, 6:30 p.m. & 9 p.m.; $75-$110. (213) 761-8598, sweetlandopera.com.
