Unique Rock Opera To Debut This Month

"Where Elephants Weep" combines modern Western instruments like electric guitars with traditional instruments like the twin gongs, above.

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
04 November 2008

“Where Elephants Weep,” a rock opera blend of Western and Cambodian performing arts, will begin a 10-day run in Phnom Penh later this month, organizers said Tuesday.

More than 60 Actors, dancers, singers and musicians from Cambodia will join American performers for the show, the first of its kind in Cambodia.

“Where Elephants Weep” is the story of a Cambodian-American named Sam, who returns to Cambodia to become a monk. He meets Bopha, a well-known singer, at the pagoda where he stays. Sam defies a chief monk and leaves the pagoda and religious life, and a story of love and tragedy begins.

The story was written by Catherine Filloux and is a modern adaptation of the traditional Khmer folk story “Tum Teav.”

The music was composed by Him Sophy, who was trained in Russia and who worked in New York for a year with producer John Burt. The show played in Lowell, Mass., in April 2007, and Burt called it “a dream” to bring the show to Cambodia.

“Cambodian survivors have given me a lot of inspiration,” Filloux told reporters Tuesday. “When I was given an opportunity to write an opera with Him Sophy, it really seemed like an accumulation of everything that I had done so far.”

The show will run Nov. 28. and Dec. 7, and organizers hope it will play in other countries across Asia before they return to the US.

“We trained together with foreign actors and I was very impressed from the first,” said Ieng Sithul, a Cambodian performer who plays the stringed “chapei” and is a flute coach for the show.

Thai Norak Satya, secretary of state for the Ministry of Culture, welcomed the presentation of a “mixed” show.

“We can consider that the show of multi-nationalism is an event that has never been in Phnom Penh,” he said.

Filloux said the story was ultimately about Cambodia.

“The place where elephants go to cry in the story represents some level of the soul of Cambodia,” she said.

Music returns to the stage in Cambodia

The nation's first rock opera, with a blend of modern and traditional sounds, debuts soon.

November 2, 2008
By Ker Munthit
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia's first rock opera will premiere in Phnom Penh next month, a cultural milestone in the Southeast Asian country where performing arts were banned during the brutal Khmer Rouge years.

"Where Elephants Weep" is an East-meets-West blend of traditional Cambodian music and Western rock that is modeled after "Romeo and Juliet" and inspired by the Broadway musical "Rent."

Organizers said Wednesday the show will open a 10-day run Nov. 28 in a converted movie theater in the capital, Phnom Penh, a year later than its planned debut at the end of 2007.

The show was commissioned by Cambodian Living Arts, a project of the Boston-based nonprofit organization World Education, which seeks to revive traditional Cambodian performing arts and inspire contemporary artistic expression among Cambodians.



Charley Todd, a co-president of the CLA's governing board, said the opera had a successful preview last year in Lowell, Mass., which has a sizable community of Cambodian refugees.

But producers needed extra time for fine-tuning.

It is expected to later tour in other countries, including the United States, South Korea and Singapore.

Arts and entertainment were banned when the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia between 1975-79 and killed some 1.7 million people through starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

Execution sites from the time now serve as grim attractions for tourists visiting Cambodia.

"Where Elephants Weep" is an operatic take on "Tum Teav," the Cambodian version of "Romeo and Juliet."

It tells the story a Cambodian-American who lost his father during the Khmer Rouge era and returns home after Cambodia's civil war to trace his roots.

In Phnom Penh, he meets and falls in love with a Cambodian woman who works as a karaoke singer.

The music was composed by the Russian-trained Cambodian maestro Him Sophy.

He was inspired by the musical genre of the rock opera "Rent," which he saw twice during a trip to New York City.

Cambodian musicians in the performance use electric guitars, electronic drums, keyboards and traditional instruments like buffalo horns, bamboo flutes, gongs and the chapei, a long-neck lute with two nylon strings.

After seven years of work, Him Sophy said he expected a celebration — both on stage and in the country.

"It is going to be a big national cultural event," Him Sophy said. "And the entire team is committed to making it happen flawlessly and perfectly."

Cambodia's First Modern Musical, Where Elephants Weep, to Premiere in Phnom Penh

Oct 28, 2008
By: Dan Bacalzo · New York
Theater Mania

Cambodia's first-ever modern music theater work, Where Elephants Weep, will make its official world premiere in Phnom Penh, Cambodia at the Chenla Theater, November 28-December 7. The production features a libretto by Catherine Filloux, a score by Him Sophy, musical supervision by Scot Stafford, direction by Robert McQueen and choreography by Seán Curran, and is produced in association with Amrita Performing Arts.

The show tells the tale of Sam, a refugee from the Khmer Rouge genocide who leaves America and returns to his homeland of Cambodia. Committed to finding his roots in his native culture, he unexpectedly falls in love with Bopha, a homegrown pop star. The musical weaves 12th century musical styles and traditional Cambodian instruments with a contemporary, Western-style rock band to reinterpret traditional Khmer music for a new era.

The show will be performed by a group of principal U.S. performers, together with a Cambodian company of actors, singers, dancers and musicians. The production is expected to return to the U.S., after playing several Asian cities, in the autumn of 2010.

For more information, visit www.whereelephantsweep.net.