Music by Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei, Libretto by Mina Salehpour

In The Angle of Darkness a woman recounts a time in her life when she moved to a new place as a young girl and was shocked to find that in this place, dolls were created to be faceless.

Composer: Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei

Libretto: Mina Salehpour

Duration: 17min

Instrumentation: sop, bari, cl, sax, perc

Director: Brenda Huggins

Premiere: 2020

Status: Active, Available for residency and further development.

HISTORY

03/12/2019 - Guerilla Opera receives Opera America Innovation Grant

09/22/2019 - Libretto reading at Brandeis University

11/23/2019 - Piano Reading of scores in development

03/14/2020 - Live Streamed Fellowship Showcase: Lab Performance

ABOUT THE OPERA

The Angle of Darkness blossoms from an anecdote by an anonymous Iranian woman, which reflects on the loss of identity, agency, and humanity that comes along with censorship, persecution, and mandatory laws placed on women which police their bodies and minds both outwardly and inwardly. The woman recounts a time in her life when she moved to a new place as a young girl and was shocked to find that in this place, dolls were created to be faceless. The governing body had banned painting faces on dolls, calling this practice blasphemous, saying, “only God can create faces.” This simple edict–just one example of the many laws placed on women around the world–leads the woman to feel her reflection has no place in society: even her toys are policed. She longs to break free of this oppression and to see her face–as well as the faces of countless other women–reflected in her everyday life, given free agency to express her identity without persecution or fear of condemnation.

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei (دانیال رضا سبزقبایی) (ASCAP) is a composer and vocalist whose work aims to emphasize the malleability of time and how we experience it, not just in the concert hall but in everyday life as well. His music has been performed and commissioned by organizations including: Hong Kong’s Intimacy of Creativity Festival, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Beth-Morrison Projects, the New York Festival of Song, Israeli Chamber Project, [Switch-Ensemble], Pro Coro Canada, TAK Ensemble, Contemporaneous, Utah’s Moab Music Festival, Minnesota’s VocalEssence, Dallas’ Voices of Change, Seattle’s The Esoterics, the Busan Choral Festival, Korea’s Ansan City Choir, Romania’s ICon Arts Festival, Festivalul Internațional Craiova Muzicală, and Ukraine’s Kharkov Youth Orchestra Slobozhanskiy to name a few. As of late, Daniel has been studying and taking increasing inspiration from Persian melodic and rhythmic systems, folk music, art, and poetry.

Daniel is currently a doctoral student and Sage Fellow at Cornell University, studying with Kevin Ernste, Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, and Roberto Sierra. (https://danielsabzghabaei.com/)