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For Immediate Release — Spoleto Festival USA today announced the cast and creative team for the world premiere performances of Ruinous Gods, a new full-length chamber opera by composer Layale Chaker and librettist Lisa Schlesinger, running from May 24-June 1, 2024. Co-produced and co-commissioned by Spoleto Festival USA, Opera Wuppertal, and Nederlandse Reisopera, the work explores the trauma of refugee syndrome through an operatic dreamscape depicting resignation syndrome, a child’s psychological response to displacement. Tickets on sale January 26 with the announcement of the full season.
This production will be co-directed by theater directors, dramaturgists, and Zoukak Theatre Company founding members Omar Abi Azar and Maya Zbib, with costume design by Sarah Leterrier, scenic design by Joelle Aoun and lighting design by James Ingalls. Conductor Kamna Gupta will lead from the podium, and the cast includes Karim Sulayman as Crow, Taylor-Alexis Dupont as Hannah, Teryn Kuzma as H'ala, Leroy Davis as Blue Dove and Dr. Undertow, Sharmay Musacchio as Swift, and Sarah Shafer as Sophia.
Grounded in testimonies from survivors and families of those afflicted with resignation syndrome, the evocative opera follows the experiences of a mother, Hannah, and her 12-year-old daughter, H’ala, who suffers from a traumatic response to the state of living in the limbo of displacement. Evident in refugee camps around the world, resignation syndrome causes the child, most often between the ages of 8 to 15, to fall into a non-responsive sleep.
Loosely based on the Greek myth of Persephone and Demeter, Ruinous Gods traces H’ala’s journey to an “underworld” landscape where she is joined by other children who have fled their homes. As H’ala sleeps, Hannah navigates the effects of her daughter’s detachment and faces unforgiving realities of their refugee status. Though the work does not name a specific setting, pointed moments allude to camps on the island of Lesvos, the practice of familial separation, deadly water crossings, and a figure named “Jeb Fezos,” who represents society’s desensitization to billionaires’ gross spending on pet projects rather than initiatives for the common good. Despite the painful context of the characters’ situation, the work finds moments of friendship, empathy, humor, and hope in the darkest moments.
In a joint statement, Schlesinger and composer Layale Chaker said: “Ruinous Gods challenges political otherness through music that amplifies marginalized voices and incites and fosters curiosity, connection, empathy, and openness.”
Worldwide, more than 117 million people are displaced, and nearly half of them are children. Said librettist Lisa Schlesinger, a transdisciplinary writer and theater activist committed to social and eco-justice: “The United Nations Human Rights Council commission on the welfare of children declared that 7 million children are deprived of their liberty. Yet children literally embody the future. This opera challenges us to examine our current ecological and environmental state as well as the discriminatory practices against many of the world’s inhabitants.”
Schlesinger’s initial thoughts for this project began pre-pandemic, and, since she and Chaker began collaborating in early 2020, have continued to evolve the work. “The refugee crisis is as relevant today as ever,” said Schlesinger. “In April, asylum seekers were purposely abandoned on an emergency life raft in the Aegean Sea. The stories are everywhere—we cannot close our eyes to them.”
Said Chaker: “In the past four years, this work has seen many rewrites as we responded to drastic changes in current events. Yet the core of this work remained constant: that our common human condition lies our children’s hands. This story invites reflection on the current political, social, and environmental practices, and their repercussions on the young.”
Said Spoleto Festival USA’s General Director & CEO Mena Mark Hanna: “This is a work about forced migration with themes that should be at the forefront of our minds. Evoking the current crisis at the US Southern border to the calamities happening in the Mediterranean, Europe, and the Middle East, Ruinous Gods speaks to the maddening political morass that drags down the world’s most vulnerable. Reverberations of this piece shook me to my core, especially as a father.”
Musically, the work is rooted in the traditions of Arabic Maqam and Western classical music. Created for six soloists, a chorus, and a chamber ensemble of strings, oboe/English horn, bassoon, flute, clarinet, harp, percussion, and piano, the score includes the use of a microtonal keyboard. Said Chaker: “Its musical branches reach a multitude of musical landscapes and languages spanning contemporary classical music with influences from Arabic, Ottoman, Hindustani, Persian, Hindustani music, as well as jazz and free improvisation. It alludes in form and structure to the Chorus in ancient Greek tragedy, while some sung texts also stem from Babylonian and Assyrian divinations and incantations. The music of Ruinous Gods crosses different fields, including spoken word, pushing boundaries of forms and structures. Likewise, this musical experimentation aims to challenge canonical rules, rethinking microtonality, the relationships between untampered modality and tempered harmony, and cyclical and linear rhythms.”
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Ruinous Gods
May 24, 26, & 29, June 1, 2024
Sottile Theatre
44 George St
Charleston, SC 29401
*Additional details available with the season announcement in January; learn more HERE
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Deemed a “Rising Star” by BBC Music Magazine, violinist and composer Layale Chaker was raised on the verge of several musical streams since her childhood. She debuted her musical training at the National Higher Conservatory of Beirut in her native Lebanon and later pursued her musical studies at Conservatoire de Paris and the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Chaker’s musical world lies at the intersection of classical contemporary music, Jazz, Arabic Music, and improvisation. She has worked with Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Ziad Rahbani, Johnny Gandelsman, Holland Baroque, Oxford Orchestra, New World Symphony, London Jazz Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Junger Kunstler Festival Bayreuth, Lucerne Festival, Beethoven Festival Bonn, and Avignon Festival, among others. She has been featured at The Berlin Philharmonic, Abbaye de Royaumont, Hancher, The Stone, National Sawdust, Royal Albert Hall, and the Wigmore Hall.
This season, she completed a year-long residency at WQXR, where she premiered a new work with her chamber jazz quintet, and completed a recording with string quartet ETHEL, released in summer of 2023. In June, she premiered a new work for violin and choir with the choral ensemble Capella Amsterdam, and in October 2023, her clarinet and violin concerto will premiere with the New York Philharmonic and the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra.
Inner Rhyme, her debut release with Sarafand, was listed as “Top of The World” by Songlines magazine with a 5-star review, Top 10 NPR Best Releases, #1 for several weeks on the World Charts of iTunes and Amazon Music, and received praise by The New York Times, The Strad, Strings Magazine, Jazz World, and Rootsworld, among others.
A 2020-2022 Jerome Hill Fellow, Chaker is also a recipient of the Opera America Discovery 2022 award, Nadia et Lili Boulanger 2019 laureate, finalist of the Rolex Mentor & Protege 2018 Prize, the recipient of the Diaphonique Franco-British Commission Prize 2019, the 2018 Arab Fund for Arts and Culture Grant, the Royal Academy of Music 2018 Guinness Award, and the winner of the Ruth Anderson 2017 Competition.
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Lisa Schlesinger’s Middle Eastern theater activism works include Twenty-One Positions (Broadway Plays Press) with Naomi Wallace and Abed Fattah AbuSrour; A Dream of the Sea, commissioned by Palestine National Theatre; and The Gaza Monologues with Ashtar Theatre. Schlesinger’s works range from intimate kitchen/table theatre to performance parades in occupied cities. Her plays include the Celestial Bodies Trilogy, Rock Ends Ahead (BBC International Playwriting Award), and The Bones of Danny Winston (Sundance ?nalist). She is currently working on The Iphigenia Project, begun in 2014, a transdisciplinary series of collaborative works focused on the global refugee and immigration crisis. Iphigenia Point Blank, a ?lm opera and the ?rst full-length performance in the Project, will premiere in New York in 2023.
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Omar Abi Azar is a theatre director and founding member of Zoukak Theatre. Since 2006, he directed and been the dramaturg of several of Zoukak’s performances that toured in various cities in the Middle East, Europe, the United States, South America, South Asia and Africa. He was commissioned by international festivals, theatres and universities to create original work: NYUAD’s Performing Arts Center, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center, University of Houston, Texas, Theaterfestival Schwindelfrei Mannheim, Williams College, Massachusetts, among others. He was artist in residence at the Lift Festival, London, Sundance Theatre Lab, Utah among others. Since 2008, Omar has led psychosocial interventions with Zoukak, targeting various communities in different regions of Lebanon and abroad (in Serbia and in Calais’ Migrants’ Camp, France). He is also the curator of “Zoukak Sidewalks,” an international platform of performance and “Focus Liban,” a showcase of the work of local artists in Lebanon. In 2020, Omar Abi Azar was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in recognition of his contributions to the arts.
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Maya Zbib is a theatre director, performer, writer, trainer and co-founder and co-artistic director of Beirut’s Zoukak Theatre (2006) and Sidewalks Festival (2013). She’s been commissioned to create work for various international festivals, universities and venues, her performances, which most recently include The Love Project (2019) and Anatomy Titus (2022), have been shown around the world (Williams College, MUCEM museum, New York Public Library, LIFT festival, The Royal Court Theatre, International Theatre Festival of Kerala, The Southbank Center, Santiago a Mil Festival, University of Houston). She teaches regularly at universities and in non-academic contexts, in Lebanon and abroad; with a focus on devising, physical theatre and writing. Zbib is a Chevening/KRSF Alumna (2007), Cultural Leadership International Alumna (2010), fellow of ISPA, NY (2010), was selected as protégée of Peter Sellars within the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative (2011), represented the Arab Region as World Theatre Day message Author at UNESCO, and was honored within Cairo's 27th International Festival for Experimental Theatre (2020). As two-time finalist of the Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award, she will receive Special Recognition in October 2023.
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Sarah Leterrier graduated from the National School of Applied Arts Duperre´ in 2000. She regularly exhibits her personal work as a painter and sculptor. Her work has been published in Joie Panique magazines. At the same time, her training as a visual artist encouraged her to follow multiple paths: she has designed costumes for Nathalie Garraud and Olivier Saccomano, Fre´de´ric Be´lier Garcia, Alain Franc¸on, the Maladroits company, Pierre Notte, and for the opera companies of Marseille, Avignon and Nantes in collaboration with Catherine Leterrier. Leterrier has also been a textile designer for publications such as View on Colors by Li Edelkoort and IT magazine, the creator of fashion accessories sold at Colette or HP deco, and a landscape designer with Arpents Paysages, notably at the Chaumont International festival in 2005. In 2022, she designed the costumes for Institut Ophelie, directed by Nathalie Garraud and Olivier Saccomano at the The´a^tre des 13 vents in Montpellier and in October 2023 Sur la Cote Sud directed by Fre´de´ric Be´lier Garcia at the Come´die de Reims.
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Joelle Aoun is a set designer for film and television. She originally trained as an architect in Lebanon and later graduated from the National Film and Television School with an MA in Production Design. Her latest film credits include Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, Olivier Dahan’s Simone – Le voyage du siècle and Guillaume Canet's Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom. She is the designer of a number of short films including, Neo Nahda by May Ziadé and MIA by Maria Martinez Bayona, winner of the Postgraduate Craft Skills Production Design award at the RTS Student Awards.
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James F. Ingalls returns to the Spoleto Festival USA where he has designed Katya Kabanova, Il Farnace, and Waiting for Godot, all directed by Garry Hynes and The Little Matchgirl, directed by Phelim McDermott. Recent projects include A Year with Frog and Toad (Minneapolis Children’s Theatre); Anima Animus (Dutch National Ballet); Twyla at The Joyce! (Twyla Tharp/Joyce Theatre, NYC); Beatrice di Tenda (Paris Opera); Médée (Staatsoper Unter Den Linden) and LA Master Chorale’s Music to Accompany a Departure, both directed by Peter Sellars; Echo and Drum Circle (Paul Taylor Dance Company). He often collaborates with The Wooden Floor dancers, Santa Ana, CA.
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Kamna Gupta is an American Prize-winning conductor experienced in operatic, orchestral, and choral repertoires. In 2022-2023, Ms. Gupta made debuts with Vancouver Opera, Dartmouth Hopkins Center for Arts and Stanford Live, PROTOTYPE Festival, and joined projects with Mannes Opera, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Atlanta Opera. In the summer, she returned for her fifth season to The Glimmerglass Festival. Several premieres also mark the upcoming 2023-24 season: Ms. Gupta leads the Trinity Church Wall Street Choirs and NOVUS in Luna Pearl Woolf's new oratorio Number Our Days (part of the inaugural season of New York's newest venue the Perelman Performing Arts Center), and she returns to Spoleto Festival to conduct the world premiere of Ruinous Gods. Ms. Gupta also joins Washington National Opera as the cover conductor for Songbird, and returns to Tapestry Opera to conduct Rocking Horse Winner.
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Contralto Sharmay Musacchio has won critical acclaim for her work spanning both the dramatic repertoire and contemporary opera, notably originating the role of Iphigenia the Elder in the world premiere and ongoing tour of ...(Iphigenia), a new opera by Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding at Kennedy Center and various venues. She made her debut as the Auntie in The Scarlet Ibis, a new opera by David Cote and Stefan Wiseman- A Chicago premiere presented by the Chicago Opera Theatre. Last season at The Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Musacchio returned to their artist roster for Akhnaten. Ms.Musacchio also made her role debut as Sotopenre in Akhnaten with the LAOpera. On the symphonic stage, Ms. Musacchio has performed as the Alto Soloist in: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with The Peninsula Symphony, Verdi’s Requiem with The Masterworks Chorale, Vivaldi’s Gloria at Carnegie Hall, Handel’s Messiah with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra, San Diego City Ballet Symphony and at Davies Symphony Hall with SFCM.
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Ukrainian-American soprano and bandurist Teryn Kuzma is a versatile performer and musician of classical, contemporary, musical theater, and folk repertoire. Ms. Kuzma will make her Spoleto Festival USA debut as H'ala in Ruinous Gods. Recently, Ms. Kuzma joined OnSite Opera to cover the roles of the Frog and Mechanical Nightingale in their production of Song of the Nightingale, and sang the role of Celia in Bard Consevatory’s production of Iolanthe. In 2022, she sang the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen, where she was hailed as having a “silvery tone” by David Shengold in Opera News.
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As a member of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center Ensemble at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, baritone Leroy Davis sang or covered roles in Macbeth, Die Zauberflöte, Florencia en el Amazonas, Tosca, and Fire Shut Up In My Bones. Recent engagements include Charlie in Three Decembers with Opera on the Avalon, where he proudly joins the premiere cast of Laura Kaminsky and Lisa Moore’s new opera, FEBRUARY in 2023. Leroy also performed the role of Guglielmo in Così fan tutte with Cedar Rapids Opera, the Pirate King with Nashville Opera and returned to Florentine Opera for Figaro in Il barbieri di Siviglia. 2024 performances include the role of Benny Paret in Champion with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, covering the title role of Young Emile Griffith, and a return to Florentine Opera for Bronzeville bohème as Marcello. Leroy is delighted to make his debut this season at the Spoleto Festival in Ruinous Gods.
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In opera, Sarah Shafer is experiencing a burgeoning career, including a debut with the Metropolitan Opera as Azema in Semiramide, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro with San Diego Opera, and her role and company debut in the title role of L’incoronazione di Poppea with Cincinnati Opera. Ms. Shafer has appeared with San Francisco Opera as Pamina in Jun Kaneko’s production of Die Zauberflöte, Mary Lennox in the world premiere of Nolan Gasser’s The Secret Garden, Zerlina in Jacopo Spirei’s new production of Don Giovanni, and the world premiere of Marco Tutino’s Two Women in the role of Rosetta, opposite Anna Caterina Antonacci and conducted by Nicola Luisotti. She had an enormous success in her return to Opera Philadelphia as Adina in Stephen Lawless’ production of L’elisir d’amore. Elsewhere, she has sung Leïla in Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles at Tulsa Opera, Barbarina and the cover of Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro at the Glyndebourne Festival and with the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall, and several roles for Opera Philadelphia including Nuria in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar and Voce dal Cielo in Don Carlo.
An avid recitalist and chamber musician, Ms. Shafer enjoys an active collaboration with legendary pianist Richard Goode, having performed Schumann and Brahms lieder with him at Carnegie Hall, Spivey Hall, Chamber Music Sedona, and Chamber Music Society of Detroit as well as other venues in Palm Beach and New York. She has performed Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen with clarinetist Anthony McGill at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Five Borough Music Festival. She has also collaborated with such musicians as guitarist Jason Vieaux, Anna Polonsky, and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. Ms. Shafer was a resident artist at the Marlboro Music Festival for five summers, where she worked with Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida, Benita Valente, Sir Thomas Allen, and Martin Isepp. She actively appears with the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Mozart and Handel Académie in Aix-en-Provence, Bard Summer Music Festival, and Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary.
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About Spoleto Festival USA
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Founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, Spoleto Festival USA is internationally recognized as America’s premier performing arts festival. For 17 days and nights each spring, Spoleto Festival USA fills Charleston’s historic theaters, churches, and outdoor spaces with performances in opera; theater; dance; and chamber, symphonic, choral, and jazz music. Spoleto produces and presents work of the highest artistic caliber to diverse and adventurous audiences. Through innovation, education, and a commitment to community, Spoleto harnesses the power of the arts to foster a culture of belonging and deepen and engage the public appreciation for the arts in building a better world. Presenting more than 100 performances, the 2024 season takes place May 24 to June 9 in various locations on the downtown peninsula. Spoleto Festival USA is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
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