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, 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

"In Our Daughter’s Eyes gives us direct access to the husband’s excruciating mental pain and depression, with several ear-shattering climaxes of almost unbearable intensity from the amplified orchestra. At times the orchestra delineated the motions of the growing baby, so we felt that the bodies of husband and wife were conjoined in the child’s life..."

Opera News

"This unnervingly direct work, with its focus fastened on the dynamics of emotion and the apocalyptic depths that can open beneath us, is, in many ways, verismo opera for today."

Opera News

"...IN OUR DAUGHTER’S EYES is not a narrative about “manhood” as such but rather a personal story about the potential of role models, with all their flaws, unattached to gender or politics."

Paris LA

“Indie pop diva with an avant-garde edge”

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)