It Rained on Shakopee (with Subtitle)

Did you know that every prisoner at Shakopee can tell which guard is approaching by the sound of the guard’s jingling keys?
This miniature concert opera features:
1 ) Eleven Shakopee Prisoners (on tape);
2) Soprano and Baritone couple Vicki and Jeff Madison;
3) Children’s choir;
4) Award wining LSCO music director Warren T. Friesen.
Commissioned by Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra, this chamber opera is supported by The McKnight Foundation and NewMusic USA.
A first of its kind, chamber opera “It Rained On Shakopee” unites two otherwise unrelated Minnesota communities to channel the voices from inside the fence to the public. Shakopee Prison and Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra will join forces in the creation and premiere of this opera. The literal voices are women of the Shakopee Prison. You will hear them on tape, incorporated as a “ghost choir” during the performance of the opera. The metaphoric voices are the individual prisoners who contributed to the story of this opera in various ways. Minnesota Correctional Facility - Shakopee houses all of Minnesota’s female offenders. It is also the only women’s correctional facility in the nation to house maximum custody level offenders.
* * * * * * *
What is it really about?
For eighteen months, librettist Zhu Yi and I have sat inches away from dangerous criminals at the Minnesota Shakopee prison. Women deemed unfit for society. All in the name of writing a “Research Opera.” At least, that’s what I thought I was doing.
But halfway through our time together, there was a blazing moment of clarity, when one inmate confronted me: “Why are you here? What do you want from us?”, and I heard this phrase coming out of me, cutting straight through their troubled faces: “I identify with your struggles,” I said.
Having been convicted, they are seen as guilty until proven innocent. No matter how they may have grown or changed, no matter how many times they prove themselves worthy and competent, these women will always be judged by their rap sheet, and met with shut doors. You were a felon, you must be a bad person.
The pattern goes on. You are black, you must be violent. You wear a taqiyah cap, you must be a terrorist. You are gay, something must be wrong with you. You are a woman, you must be less competent…They are not one of us, they deserve to die…Where does it stop?
I have been tremendously lucky. But I, too, find myself judged and discarded based only on the most perfunctory reading of my face: I look Chinese. My name sounds Chinese. I must write Chinese music. In fact, my training is Soviet, my sound world is European, and I’m an American citizen. My opera stories reflect timely and timeless human conditions, not limited to a particular tribe.
It’s been a humbling eighteen months. “It Rained on Shakopee” touches on:
• Identity
• Compelling true stories
• Content that challenges our audience
• Mother-daughter dynamics
• Empathy
• Trans-generational transference of trauma
• Diversity
• Relevance
• Strong female roles
• Postpartum Psychosis
Love can be a choice. This opera is the proof.

[@SIEBEGORMEN]

Brilliant. Great to see a Chinese composer working in USA