Composer: Jonathan Berger
Performer: Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Smithsonian Folkways
Catalogue: SFW40251CD
Release: 2022
Size: 310 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
01. Mỹ Lai Lullaby
First Landing:
02. Flight
03. Descent
04. The Ditch
Second Landing
05. Hovering
06. Bunker
Third Landing
07. Postcard
08. Fishing
On March 16, 1968, the United States Army killed over 500 unarmed civilians in the hamlet of My Lai, Vietnam.
The unimaginable brutality of the event impacted all those who witnessed it firsthand, including helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, who, against orders, intervened to save Vietnamese lives. Thompson’s story is the basis of the opera My Lai, composed by Jonathan Berger (music) and Harriet Scott Chessman (libretto) for Kronos Quartet, Vietnamese multi-instrumentalist Vn-nh Vanessa V, and vocalist Rinde Eckert. This definitive recording of My Lai captures the visceral, phantasmal depictions of Thompson’s grief, horror, and guilt as he is haunted by persistent memories of that cataclysmic day, half a world and nearly four decades away. Tense and unforgiving, My Lai is “a gripping affair, beginning to end” (New York Times). Presented here alongside recollections by Vietnamese survivor Tran Van Duc, it is a memorial to all the My Lai villagers killed on that grim day.
On Friday, May 20, 2022, Kronos Quartet releases the world premiere recording of Mỹ Lai, the acclaimed opera composed by Jonathan Berger with libretto by Harriet Scott Chessman, on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Mỹ Lai is a powerful story about the Mỹ Lai massacre and the ethical dilemmas of an individual placed in an impossible situation, with a dramatic score emphasizing the bleakness and horror of the Vietnam War. The opera for tenor, string quartet, and Vietnamese instruments features vocalist Rinde Eckert and multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, who plays the t’rưng, đàn bầu, and đàn tranh.
Kronos Quartet presents concerts featuring the Mỹ Lai Suite (adapted from the complete opera) on April 8 as part of its annual Kronos Festival at the SFJAZZ Miner Auditorium in San Francisco; and on April 23 at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in New York.
Mỹ Lai centers on Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, the U.S. Army helicopter pilot who intervened in the U.S. Army massacre of over 500 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians – nearly half of them children – in the hamlet of Mỹ Lai on March 16, 1968. Appalled by what he saw, Thompson interceded by reporting the incident, landing his helicopter between the civilians and the troops in an attempt to prevent further bloodshed, and threatened to open fire on soldiers from his own country. Failing to stop the carnage, he flew a wounded child to safety, and his subsequent refusal to remain silent about the massacre forced an inquiry and trial that shocked the nation, yet it left Thompson vilified as a disloyal outcast for much of his life. The recording is dedicated to the memory of Larry Colburn, one of the three soldiers on the helicopter, who attended the world premiere performance of Mỹ Lai in Chicago.
“The musical materials of Mỹ Lai are largely derived from a prayer recited near the conclusion of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, beseeching pardon before the doors of judgment close,” says composer Jonathan Berger. “The musical reference is used in the scenes where Thompson opens the helicopter door in an attempt to stop the massacre, and in the surreal television game show in which he becomes an unwilling contestant forced to guess what’s behind a hidden door.” The monodrama is set in a hospital where Thompson is dying from cancer. Feeling neither heroic nor particularly proud of what he did, he grapples with the memories of his naïve, idealistic attempt to stop the carnage in an effort to seek closure and resolution on one of the darkest moments of the Vietnam War.