Micaela Tobin: BAKUNAWA: Opera of the Seven Moons

Micaela Tobin: BAKUNAWA: Opera of the Seven Moons

“Opera would do well to pay attention”

The New Yorker

“…she [Tobin] wields her voice and her instruments as both tools and weapon; they serve as conduits for evocative storytelling, but also as cudgels against imperialism.”

The Wire Magazine

“LA-based Soprano Micaela Tobin brings her powerful operatic voice out of the concert halls and into the real damn world.”

Spools Out: The Quietus

WATCH

Available May 1, 2021 to ticket holders with a password.
Purchase a ticket here.

8:30 PM PDT 

Performance

To watch, please visit watch.redcat.org and enter your ticketed password in the Ticket Holders section.

 

9:30 PM PDT

Join the artist for a virtual lounge on Zoom by clicking here.

 

VIRTUAL EVENT

Bakunawa rose from the ocean, so mesmerized by the light of the seven moons that it devoured them all. Dismayed, the people emerged, making noise and begging Bakunawa to give them back the moonlight. Bakunawa agreed and spit the seventh moon back into the sky, thus creating the first lunar eclipse. 

Part sonic ritual, part diasporic storytelling, BAKUNAWA: Opera of the Seven Moons is an immersive, experimental opera based on Micaela Tobin’s critically-acclaimed album of the same name that reclaims the pre-colonial mythology of the Philippines back from centuries of violent, colonial erasure. Released by Deathbomb Arc in June 2020, BAKUNAWA was recently listed the #9 Release of 2020 in The Wire Magazine. 

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

A first-generation Filipina-American, Los Angeles-based soprano and sound artist Tobin, with additional composition and orchestration by Rhea Fowler, brings her voice out of the imperialist walls of the opera hall and onto the California coast facing the Pacific ocean—creating a sonic bridge to the Philippine Islands from which her ancestral myth originates.

Associated Images: 

Date/TimeGM/STCA
SAT 5/1
8:30 pm PDT
$15$12$8

G - General Audience

M - REDCAT Members

ST - Students

CA - CalArts Students/Faculty/Staff