Diane Tran faced an impossible dilemma: attend school and lose the job needed to support herself and her younger brothers, or meet the demands of her employer and face jail time for truancy. Either way, without the support of her parents, these three young refugees from Vietnam found little empathy in the U.S. legal system, and this true-to-life story is the subject of the new opera Bound by composer Huang Ruo and librettist Bao-Long Chu, the latest version of which was presented last June at Seattle Opera.
This version includes a one-hour first act, in which Diane finds herself caught between her absent mother Khanh and the overbearing male figures of her employer and judge. This push-pull between the U.S. and Vietnam is mirrored by the orchestra’s composition of traditional Vietnamese instruments, the đàn bầu and đàn tranh, accompanied by piano.
Bound was first created and presented in 2014, but Ruo has added a prelude to his original composition. “The prelude highlights the two Vietnamese instruments that are part of the instrumental ensemble, the đan bầu and đan tranh,” he said. “I wanted the prelude to set the tone for the opera and capture wordlessly the characters’ emotions.”
The opera’s structure is more circular than chronological. “During the entire opera, the stories of the past and present are interwoven, reflecting the mental state of those who cannot, in a sense, bind past sufferings to the past,” Chu said.
To illuminate this, Ruo asked Chu to write a poem for this new production, to be recited by the mother character, Khanh. “It became a letter that Diane receives and reads while she is in jail,” he explained. “The letter explains Khanh’s decision to leave her family, which is what put Diane in the position of having to work multiple jobs and ultimately be convicted of truancy.”
This new element highlights the constraints in which refugees find themselves trapped. “Diane is not the only one who feels bound to competing obligations, as her mother felt that way as well, as do all of the characters in the opera,” Ruo said. “I think that is an experience that is relatable to everyone, not just Asian Americans or second-generation immigrants.”
Bound is also an expression of U.S. society’s inequitable access to mental health care, especially for immigrants and refugees. “The drama of Bound is interior and hinges on Khanh’s decision to abandon her family, the ultimate sin within the social binding of Confucianism in Vietnam that holds the family hierarchy at the core of a life lived in harmony,” Chu said. “Reading the mother’s leaving within the American notion of an individual’s success or that she has found a new voice, one that has been squashed by her husband’s Confucius notion of the subservient wife, is not enough. It is also important to understand that PTSD is a mental health condition that, in a sense, blurs past and present, as trauma transcends time.”
As Bound has developed, both Ruo and Chu have been pleased with their partnership on this opera over the past decade. “I was approached by Houston Grand Opera in 2012 to write an opera for their Song of Houston series, which commissions composers to write about Houston-specific stories,” Ruo reported. “They wanted to do a story about the Vietnamese community, so they recommended I collaborate with Bao-Long Chu.”
Chu, a poet who lives in Houston, traveled to New York to meet Ruo, and they hit it off right away. “HGO commissioned me in 2013 to write a Vietnamese American story for their program East + West, a series celebrating Houston as a meeting place for Eastern and Western cultures by sourcing and staging local stories from the Asian diaspora,” Chu said. “I count my lucky stars that HGO had the foresight to attach me with Huang for Bound.”
Although not previously familiar with Ruo’s work, Chu listened to a recording of Ruo’s recent major opera Dr. Sun Yat-sen. “I was overtaken by his modern music style that combined patterns of Chinese music,” Chu recalled. “His music evokes both a sense of familiarity and discovery all at once.”
The pair developed Bound in tandem. “My preference when working with a librettist is to collaborate on the structure from the beginning, instead of composing from a fully formed libretto,” Ruo said. “Long and I built this story together and I think we ended up with a piece where the words and music really complement each other.”
Chu especially appreciates Ruo’s collaboration style. “We were, pun intended, bound together at the start,” Chu mused. “We had a brotherly rapport, we understood each other’s stories and looked to the same creative North Star regarding the need to amplify the Asian consciousness of family, belonging, and duty in our creative work.”
That alignment of direction made Chu feel safe in taking risks. “My own form of art, poetry, is not a collaborative one,” he elaborated. “Writing poetry is solitary, but creating an opera demands and rewards collaborative planning and dialogic experimentation.”
Likewise, Ruo found Chu’s contribution essential. “Long’s family history gave him a unique and specific perspective on this story,” Ruo said of his librettist. “He came to the U.S. from Vietnam with his family when he was very young, so he knows the refugee experience firsthand.”
From this real experience, both Chu and Ruo illuminate Diane’s experience in ethereal and dream-like ways. “Although Bound is based on a true story, Long took some poetic license with it to create a libretto that’s a little more fluid and abstract, which really brings the characters’ emotions to the forefront of the piece,” Ruo said. “And that gave me the space to use music to enhance the meaning of the words.”
Ruo also has the opportunity to enhance the latest production because he served as conductor for the show as well. “I have written nine operas so far, and I have found that being part of the preparation process for opera is so precious and unique,” he said. “You get to work with a large team to put on a work of art, and you’re all just rooting for the success of the production. That is something I miss very much when I’m just on the sideline as a composer.”
His passion for the characters and capturing their emotions through music comes through in his conducting. “I believe it’s important for the composer to be present for opera production to coach the musicians,” he said. “I see the role of conductor not just as someone who stands on the podium to beat time, but as a crucial member of the team who helps every artist bring out their full potential.”
He hopes this opera continues to highlight Asian American stories. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a severe wave of discrimination against Asian Americans, who have been physically assaulted, verbally harassed, and falsely blamed for the pandemic,” he said. “But, of course, this discrimination has been a problem in America for many, many years, since at least the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1880s, and the pandemic merely brought these issues back to the forefront.”
Another goal that Ruo has is to emphasize that opera as an art form is not just for elites. “It is for the people,” he said. “We can use opera as a platform to tell the stories of our time.”
He intends Bound to be seen by diverse audiences. “This is not just an opera about one ethnic group, or one age group,” he said. “This is a human story about how we are all bound to conflicting obligations in our lives.”
The opera’s subject, Diane, maintains her privacy, but she did attend the earlier version of Bound at HGO. “After she saw the premiere, she wrote us a very nice email sharing her thoughts and thanking us for telling her story,” Ruo said. “That was very rewarding to me.”
Looking ahead, Ruo hopes to see Bound on its feet again soon. “We just don’t get that many opportunities to stage new productions of our work,” he said. “I am thankful to Seattle Opera for helping me create this new production and I hope I am able to share this production again with new audiences in new places.”
