By Trudy Ring, the Advocate. October 17, 2016
At its best, art not only entertains but makes us think — and that’s what the creators of The Source, an opera about Chelsea Manning and her leak of confidential government information, wish to do.
“The piece is about asking how we can process this massive amount of information … how we deal with war,” says composer Ted Hearne. It’s also asking audiences to consider what Manning, while in the U.S. Army, was feeling as she was reading the information and sharing it, all as she was confronting questions about her own identity, which eventually led her to come out as a transgender woman.
The Source was first performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in 2014, and it will have its West Coast premiere and only its second production ever this week in Los Angeles, under the auspices of L.A. Opera and Beth Morrison Projects. It’s slated to be staged at the San Francisco Opera in February as well.
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