LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects present composer Mary Kouyoumdjian’s “Adoration”

LOS ANGELES — Armenian-American composer and documentarian Mary Kouyoumdjian’s opera Adoration, which “dives beneath surface musicality to find humanity” (I Care If You Listen) and was called “timely and impactful” (Operawire), has its West Coast premiere in a co-presentation by LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects on February 19, 20, 22, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. and February 23, 2025 at 2:00 p.m. at REDCAT, featuring a libretto by Royce Vavrek.

Kouyoumdjian was awarded an OPERA America commissioning grant to create an opera adaptation of Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan’s Adoration. Written in collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek, Adoration touches deeply on the narrative of Kouyoumdjian’s growing years. Adoration follows Simon, an orphaned high school student. As part of a dramatic writing exercise, Simon’s teacher encourages him to appropriate details from a historical terrorist attack as an event perpetrated by his parents. When his story goes viral, Simon uses the hysteria within his community and on the internet to highlight the challenges of intolerance and racism in our society. The fictional and actual circumstances of the loss of Simon’s family are revealed in fragments, only fitting together with a shocking final revelation about Simon’s parents’ deaths.