Emily Koh Opera “HER | alive.un.dead” Sold Out Run in Boston

Story by Shaun Baer | Photo by Tim Gurczak Photography/Guerilla Opera

Emily Koh, Associate Professor of Composition, premiered her opera HER | alive.un.dead at Guerilla Opera to four sold-out houses May 12-14, 2023 at the Pao Arts Center, Boston, Massachusetts. 

HER | alive.un.dead is a media opera about three generations of Asian women in a single family. Through birth and death cycles in the family, and encounters in a space called the “in-between,” these women expound on gender biases against women, and discriminatory practices against people of Asian descent. 

The specific experiences of Asian women in largely Western society and upbringing are brought to focus. This clash between East and West is interpreted differently between the three generations of women in the family.

As Koh explained, “HER | alive.un.dead brings together so many of my interests and obsessions, many of which have been central pillars of focus for my creative energies for decades–existential philosophy, female ghosts and horror, the roles and identity of women, filtered Chinese-ness, immigrant stories, and generational trauma.”

The opera is sung in English, Mandarin, and Teochew. Guerilla Opera received an award from the Alice M. Ditson Fund to begin a studio album.