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Based on George Orwell’s 1934 debut novel, Burmese Days is set in a small town of Upper Burma, present-day Myanmar. Librettist Sarah Howe and composer Prach Boondiskulchok situate their retelling in the latter years of British occupation, around a Europeans-only clubhouse. When this closed circle is forced to admit a single Burmese member, tensions rise. Social echo chambers, political manipulations and romantic entanglements create further complications.
This chamber opera revisits the novel from a Southeast Asian perspective and brings the relationships between the Burmese characters to the fore. In his score, the Thai composer combines the colour and virtuosity of the hsaing waing and piphat music with a Western ensemble. The result is a soundscape that explores the contrast between, on the one hand, Buddhist cosmology and, on the other, the colonial machinery with its complex legacy.