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“Cambodia's first rock opera is a post-Khmer Rouge 'Rent'-inspired
musical"
By Ker Munthit; March 18, 2007
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - When the Cambodian composer Him Sophy saw
his first Broadway musical six years ago, he was so captivated he went
back to see it again.
The show was "Rent," the long-running rock opera about struggling
artists in New York City. What struck the Cambodian maestro was the musical
genre, which featured a five-member rock band right on the stage.
Inspired, the Russian-trained Him Sophy went home and started work on
Cambodia's first rock opera.
"Where Elephants Weep" features a 10-person band that fuses
the sounds of an electric guitar, electronic drums and keyboards with
traditional Cambodian instruments like buffalo horns, bamboo flutes, gongs
and the chapei, a long-neck lute with two nylon strings.
"This is an East-meets-West blend," Him Sophy, 44, who earned
a doctorate in musicology at Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, said
during a rehearsal at a makeshift studio in a Phnom Penh apartment.
The story is a modern take on "Tum Teav," the Cambodian version
of "Romeo and Juliet."
It follows Sam, a Cambodian-American who returns home after Cambodia's
civil war to trace his roots. In Phnom Penh, he meets and falls in love
with Bopha, a karaoke singer, said Catherine Filloux, the opera's librettist.
A buffalo horn, traditionally used by Cambodians to call elephants, is
the symbol of their romance. A memento from Bopha, it also reminds Sam
of his father, who played the instrument before he was killed during the
Khmer Rouge era in the late 1970s, said Filloux, in an e-mail from New
York.
"We are creating a hybrid, a piece of music and theatre that has
never been seen," said Filloux, a playwright who has written four
plays about Cambodia.
She described Him Sophy as a "distinguished musician and composer"
who speaks French, English, Russian and Vietnamese. After surviving the
brutality of the Pol Pot regime, studying music in Moscow for 13 years
and then travelling to America, this is the latest phase in "an amazing
journey" for the Cambodian composer, she said.
The opera is being sponsored by Cambodian Living Arts, or CLA, a project
of Boston-based nonprofit group World Education that seeks to revive traditional
Cambodian performing arts and inspire contemporary artistic expression
among Cambodians.
The opera will preview from April 27-29 at Lowell High School in Massachusetts,
chosen because Lowell is home to a sizable community of Cambodian refugees.
The opera's world premier is scheduled to be held in Cambodia at the end
of the year or in early 2008, said Charley Todd, a co-president of the
CLA's governing board.
The opera's American connection was established in 2001 when Him Sophy
was visiting the United States and met John Burt, the opera's producer,
who was looking for a Cambodian composer to write music for the opera.
While exploring directions for the opera, Him Sophy turned to Broadway.
Burt took him to see several shows in 2001, including Andrew Lloyd Webber's
"The Phantom of the Opera" and Jonathan Larsen's "Rent,"
which he watched twice, he said.
The musical style of "Rent" gave him the idea of spotlighting
the music itself on stage but using contemporary and traditional instruments,
he said, adding that final details of the staging were still being worked
out.
After several years of work, music rehearsals began last October in Cambodia.
Finding qualified actors in Cambodia proved difficult, so organizers turned
to Asian-American actors in the United States, Him Sophy said.
The band will spend a month rehearsing with the cast in Lowell before
the preview.
Todd said the initial reaction in Lowell among the Cambodian-American
community was skepticism.
"Initially a lot of people thought it was, frankly, kind of a crazy
idea," Todd said.
But after seeing a band rehearsal in Cambodia last year, "they came
out and said 'Oh, now I get it,"' said Todd, who describes the music
as "a cross-cultural baby being born."
In a country where traditional musicians are struggling to survive amid
the influx of Western culture, especially mainstream pop music, he said
he hopes the opera will provide new ideas and open new artistic possibilities.
Many of the band's members said they, too, had trouble at first embracing
the idea of a Cambodian rock opera.
"I found the idea to be quite bizarre," said 20-year-old Meas
Sokun, a ponytailed keyboarder who makes a living playing in pop concerts
for a local television station. "But I'm very proud to be part of
it now."
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