Dark Sisters November 19, 2011

'Dark Sisters' is a new opera with music by Nico Muhly and a libretto by Stephen Karam, co-commissioned by Gotham Chamber Opera, Music-Theatre Group and Opera Company of Philadelphia. The opera follows one woman's dangerous attempt to escape her life as a member of the FLDS Church (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints), a sect that split from mainstream Mormonism in the early 20th Century largely because of the LDS Church's renunciation of polygamy. The narrative draws inspiration from the flurry of media attention surrounding the two most infamous raids on FLDS compounds (the 1953 raid at Short Creek, AZ and the 2008 raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, TX) as well as the stories of the over 80 wives of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. 'Dark Sisters' charts one woman's quest for self-discovery in a world where personal identity is forbidden.