“With SAGA of the 21st Century Girl, Sheli Nan has crafted a score that offers biting satire and social commentary through a musical lens, and is influenced by Baroque, Salsa, Afro-Cuban music and the work of Kurt Weill and Brecht. This story conveys a timeless yet distinctly modern tale of a Girl at risk in today’s age of the Internet who yearns to find love. No one needs her, wants her, or has time for her. As energy run wild with no moral compass, the Girl transforms from preyed upon to a predator herself with tragic consequences and becomes the sacrifice that society demands. This completely original narrative with haunting musical themes is dynamic and captivating and is recommended for mature audiences. ”
SAGA of the 21st Century Girl was premiered in Berkeley, CA, on Friday, April 4, 2014, at Osher Studio. A production of First Look Sonoma and ROCKIT Opera. Conducted by Mary Chin, and directed by Melissa Weaver.
Watch the Sizzle Reel:
“SAGA Of The 21st Century Girl for so many Americans is about as close to home as a head-on collision out on the interstate, or maybe a heart attack. Second, the performers as the characters were completely engaged and convincing. ”
Synopsis:
The audience is looking at the stage. The lights come up on half the stage. A 15 year old girl is sitting on a rumpled bed in a seedy motel room. To the left there is a crummy chest of drawers with a broken mirror above them. Behind the girl there is a window with Venetian slats that are evocative of bars. A neon light shines on and off through these slats. The girl at times holds either a doll or a rather large gun as she sings the “Girl’s Soliloquy.” When her song ends the rest of the stage is lit and the audience is presented with a modern San Francisco living room circa the early 2000’s. The décor is sharp. There is a large picture window with the city towers seen through it. To either side there are curtains that are loosely gathered. In front of this long window there is a couch in the Scandinavian style with metal legs and there are matching chairs with metal legs. There is a bar. The décor is cold, uncomfortable and quite stylish. The people in this set are: The Mother, The Father, and the Girl.
The Mother then sings “The Neighbors Are Coming”. She becomes more frantic as she orders the Father around. “The Divorce Song” is a duet between the Mother and Daughter that is sung to the Father. “Father’s Poor Excuses come next. “
Father is now singing to his daughter- on stage. The finale to the first part is a trio/aria entitled, “Our “Little Family” and is sung by the Girl, the Mother and the Father.
The story treatment is the following. In Act 11 the parents are now divorced and the girl is a teenager. She has gone to a babysitting job. When the curtain goes up we see her hooked up to a computer. She has her ipod on and her cell phone is ringing. There are electronic lights and sounds but she can hear nothing as she is busy with the computer. And then above all of this electronic static we hear the frantic sounds of a baby crying. The Girl is oblivious.
Finally we hear a strange thud and the crying stops. When the Girl takes off her ipod she has a sense of foreboding. She goes to the baby’s room and sees that he has fallen out of his crib, landed on a toy, hit his head and died. She thinks that she has committed murder. She and The Shadows sing “Babysitter From Hell” and then she flees to the only person who has shown her any care and attention, a man she has met online who professes to love her. She goes to him, The Predator, and he takes her to a “Cabin in the Woods.” She stays there and is molested by him. She sings “I Want a Man on a Motorcycle”, perhaps commits another murder and eventually escapes. There is much singing between her and our Greek chorus – in this case “The Shadows” once again with much commentary on their part as they explore what has happened to her and how uninformed her choices have been. The Shadows sing “Meditation On Home” and together with the Girl sing “On The Run”.
In the last section of the opera the parents once more unite because the police contact them to tell them their daughter has gotten a gun. The stage set is once again the living room from the first act. The parents meet for the first time in a long while, flirt, drink many martinis together, reminisce and wait for their daughter. They sing together as they get more and more drunk. Meanwhile the Girl has got the gun and she is coming for her parents as they sing “Together Again”, lament their daughter’s behavior, and take no responsibility for what has happened.
The Girl and The Shadows begin to sing “Sneaking In.”
The shocking “Finale Finally”, sung by all of the characters, will be announced to the next producers of the 75 minute opera. Hang on to your hats!!!!
“Ms. Nan has truly created a “SAGA” by allowing a select audience to discover the course of the journey and insight into the seer’s vision. I think the work will raise many more questions than it answers, but isn’t that the essence of many great works of art, ancient and modern?”
Q&A with Composer Sheli Nan:
Cast & Production Team
CAST:
Crystal Philippi, The Girl
Valentina Osinski, The Mother
Jo Vincent Parks, The Father
Alexis Lane Jensen, Shadow
John Duykers, Shadow
PRODUCTION TEAM:
Sheli Nan, Composer
Melissa Weaver, Director
Mary Chun, Music Director
Matthew E. Jones, Video Designer
Jane Courant, Assistant Director
Brent Harnisch, Assistant Video Designer
Natalie Moran, Marketing/PR
Reviews:
SAGA Of The 21st Century Girl for so many Americans is about as close to home as a head-on collision out on the interstate, or maybe a heart attack. Second, the performers as the characters were completely engaged and convincing. Third the artistic concept held together like a Puccini opera, seamless in personality from start to finish. I never suspected that Ms. Nan could produce such a thing of monumental concept as this opera. It did occur to me that (at times) the opera was rather monochromatic in its message and tone, but that is exactly how any one act of Puccini or Monteverdi is so even that has to count as an accomplishment. And the whole story is uncomfortably close to home for many American families in the present. That is the most authentic part to which I alluded. Let us not forget that the original audience for L’Orpheo trashed the house repeatedly until he rewrote a softer ending.
Willard Martin
Master Builder and Music historian
Nan’s opera, “SAGA of the 21st Century Child was performed by an excellent ensemble of fresh voiced soloists, who presented the work in a semi- staged fashion, all from memory and acted with impromptu stage elements.
“SAGA” is an opera about our modern day apocalyptic science fiction reality. Its characters are presented to us at a safe distance, but they are in reality closer in real life than we like to admit. Each character is equally a victim but also a repugnant monster of the most frightful kind. The characters have no moral compass, nor regard for past or future. They only satisfy their present needs, and they have only infantile remorse and no sense of pity or mercy. It is this inescapable reality that makes me think of Berg’s “Wozzeck”, or Paul Ruders “Tjenerindens Frotelaelling”. (The Handmaid’s Tale). They all convey a helpless sense of foreboding and doom. The characters in “SAGA” are a new breed of human, entirely formed with new DNA strands from our modern computer age. Artists, thinkers…those with a moral conscious are near extinct and rendered obsolete.
Its title character, the GIRL has an inability to process the forces that created her or the ones that guide her tragic steps. Often her music is in a rocking 6/8 meter, underlining her simple nature and arrested emotional development. In this and other ways, Nan underscores a certain kinship with ancient operas and morality plays. For example, there is a Greek style chorus, which stays to the side of the action but comments upon the proceedings. Occasionally they intervene and shape events.
There is an ominous glow to the negligent Mother. Again, this character is an archetype and portrays a Mother with no capacity to nurture a child. Her utter rejection of her own blood creates a “free range child” unleashed on humanity. The PREDATOR creates the troll under the bridge from fairy tales. Or is it a fairy tale? The bridge in this case is the internet, a modern means of creating fantasy and traps for unsuspecting innocents.
In this work Ms. Nan has created a living nightmare, but we are in reality not allowed to awake with a happy ending.
Ms. Nan has truly created a “SAGA” by allowing a select audience to discover the course of the journey and insight into the seer’s vision. I think the work will raise many more questions than it answers, but isn’t that the essence of many great works of art, ancient and modern?
Gilbert Martinez
Artistic director of Music Sources
