Starring soprano Xin Wang and percussionist Ryan Scott, Grover and Friends and Alarm are two scenes based on composer Vivian Fung’s family oral history that she gathered during the spring of 2021. Fung explains, “My extended family – including my maternal grandmother, uncles, aunts, and cousins – lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in the 1970s as part of the overseas Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. They were there quite happily, in fact, until shortly before the Khmer Rouge stormed the capital in April 1975 and drove everyone out. My family miraculously survived an arduous journey – over a month on foot in the countryside of Cambodia, and then in Vietnam. Ultimately, they ended up in Paris and Canada, but those events changed the course of my family forever. I also was born in 1975, and even though I was born and raised in Canada, my birth and childhood were deeply affected by omnipresent anxiety and uncertainty over my family’s situation and safety.”

Music by Vivian Fung
Libretto by Royce Vavrek

Soprano | Xin Wang

Percussionist | Ryan Scott

PREMIERES
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2021
7:30PM MST

Streaming on Edmonton Opera’s Facebook page, YouTube channel, and FavaTV’s Studio 19.

The Wild Rose Opera Project is made possible through the support of EPCOR’s Heart + Soul Fund.