Or almost, I seem (2023)
Chamber Opera
2 sopranos, alto, baritone, clarinet, cello, percussion, and piano
Libretto: Nietzsche, Sappho, Virginia Woolf, Sofia Ouyang
ca. 14 minutes
Commissioned by Barnard-Columbia New Opera Workshop
Premiere: Barnard-Columbia New Opera Workshop "Operatic Feminisms: On and Off-Stage" in March 2023, performed by Chen Shuhe Yue, Maddy Manning-Bi, Renata Prôa, Callum Blackmore, Jefferson Sheng, Sasha He, Tim Barron, Jonathan Wang Hou, and Sofia Jen Ouyang.
Program Note
From a world-historical Nietzschean perspective of the human condition to the hyper-subjective Sapphic self, "Or almost, I seem" brings
the audience through a montage of philosophical ideas intertwined with gender history, whereby the historically silenced and marginalized femme voices gradually emerge in cracks and fissures, through the words of Sappho, Woolf, and the composer herself.