It's an opera which comes with a history lesson. An American Dream uses music to take on a true story which is a terrible, yet now largely forgotten part of American history.
In the months after the start of World War II, the U.S. government rounded up more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent, and relocated them to internment camps. It was blatant racism. Many of those relocated were American citizens. The opera intertwines the stories of two families affected by the war.
Richard Gannon is the Director of “An American Dream”. He says one family is a Japanese-American family forced from their home, and the other is a couple with a Jewish woman from Germany who fled the holocaust, and ended up living in the house. The opera focuses on how the two families stories at first overlap, and then connect.
"This story, An American Dream, is the culmination of two stories. It revolves around a house in the Pacific Northwest, and two families which have a forged relationship because of it," said Gannon.
Gannon said the opera tells a powerful story about this dark part of America’s past.
"We had a table read when I came here, and we first started with this. I asked how many people were taught this in school," said Gannon. He said no one knew the story.
Audrey Babcock plays Eva Crowley, the Jewish refugee who fled Germany for America to avoid Nazi persecution.
"It's beautiful, it's moving, and it's sad," said Babcock. "I think it's going to be news to some people. But, it's also a way of getting some people curious about our history."
Janet Todd plays a Japanese-American teenager forced from her home by the U.S. government. Out of desperation, her family sells the house for only a fraction of what it’s worth to the other couple in the story.
"It's a fictional story, but it's very, very real," said Todd. She said it reflects the pain some many families experienced.
Without giving away the story, both families stories intertwine in painful ways.
An American Dream premiered in Seattle in 2015. The Opera Santa Barbara production this weekend marks its California premiere.
Director Richard Gammon hopes that audiences will reflect on the production, and perhaps take away some of their preconceived notions of who is an American.
Opera Santa Barbara will present two performances of An American Dream Saturday. They’ll take place at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m., at the Lobero Theater.
