About

Told through the perspective of a new father, In Our Daughter’s Eyes shows the journey of the protagonist as he wrestles with truly becoming a man that his daughter would be proud of. He imparts passages from the journal he keeps — a gift for his unborn daughter — as the moments of this journey unfold before him. The story traces his wife’s joyful and fraught pregnancy, the legacy of the family’s past, and his personal demons that he vows to vanquish before assuming the role of a father. Along the way, mounting complications take the story through unexpected and sobering turns that test our flawed hero as he discovers a strength of self and purpose that he never imagined possible. This moving and heartfelt one-man opera reunites Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun, Beth Morrison Projects, and multidisciplinary librettist & director Michael Joseph McQuilken after their lauded co-creation of Pulitzer Prize-winning Angel’s Bone in 2016.

Support

In Our Daughter’s Eyes is dedicated, in loving memory, to Stuart Nelson. Commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects, Trinity Church Wall Street, Linda & Stuart Nelson. Developed by Beth Morrison Projects and Trinity Church Wall Street. Produced by Beth Morrison Projects in association with Trinity Church Wall Street. Additional support provided by the Arthur F. & Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, OPERA America, and Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts. This production is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. The commissioning of Du Yun for In Our Daughter’s Eyes received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

Press

"The score is intriguingly varied and eccentric: sometimes spare yet warm, as in a clever passage bringing together cello and muted trumpet; sometimes noirish Badalamenti-style cool vamping; sometimes chilly instrumental squiggles and shards; and sometimes exploding in raucous, frantic energy."

The New York Times

"Du Yun’s complex, seething textures helped Gunn to achieve a grittily detailed emotional realism of a kind I’ve seldom witnessed on an opera stage."

The New Yorker

“Nathan Gunn commands an operatic baritone whose mighty heft and richness confer an outsize authority on everything it touches ...”

The New York Times

“She has a boundless, almost childlike sense of curiosity about the world around her—she reinvents herself daily, and so does her music. This, combined with a fiercely disciplined technique and a total lack of interest in what anyone else thinks, just might make her that rare artist who catapults into international success but doesn’t feel the need to tame her wild side in the process…” (Praise for Du Yun)