Dark Sisters

A co-production of BU Opera Institute and School of Theatre

October 11 – 13, 2024

Studio ONE

Dark Sisters

Composed by Nico Muhly • Libretto by Stephen Karam • Arranged by Nate Thatcher

Allison Voth, music director • Rose Freeman, stage director • Gordon Cheung, conductor

Presented under license from G. Schirmer, Inc. o/b/o Chester Music Ltd./ St. Rose Music Publishing Co. Produced as part of Boston University’s 2024 Fringe Festival.

Dark Sisters, written by BUTI alum Nico Muhly (BUTI’96,’97), follows one woman’s dangerous attempt to escape her life as a member of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) church, a sect that split from mainstream Mormonism in the early 20th Century largely because of the LDS Church’s renunciation of polygamy. The male founders of the Mormon faith (Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, chief among them) loom large in American history; Dark Sisters puts the women front and center.

Sung in English, the opera takes viewers into the heart of contemporary religious fundamentalism and polygamy. In 2008, state officials raided an FLDS compound in Texas following reports of underage marriage and sexual abuse at the community. Muhly and Karam, moved by the event, wanted to use opera to plunge audiences into the inner lives of the women affected. “They’re real human beings with real human problems,” Muhly says of the women. “They’re other Americans.”