Seattle Opera’s A Thousand Splendid Suns — labour of love finally reaches the stage

A Thousand Splendid Suns, a lovely phrase from a 17th-century Persian poem, is the title of a 2007 novel by Khaled Hosseini (who also wrote The Kite Runner) and, now, after years of gestation, an opera. Which is currently playing at the Seattle Opera.

Both novel and opera tell a harrowing tale of two women caught up in the turmoil of Afghanistan between 1974 and the early 21st century. Their lives are made terrible by successive waves of patriarchal cruelty, Soviet occupation, civil war and Taliban oppression. The return of the Taliban in 2021 has only renewed the story’s grim relevance.

The illegitimate Mariam is married off at 15 by her wealthy father to Rasheed, a shoemaker who becomes viciously abusive. Laila, 19 years younger, is born into a happy, well-to-do family. She loves young Tariq and becomes pregnant. When her parents are killed, Rasheed makes her his second wife. She agrees, having been tricked into thinking Tariq is dead. She convinces Rasheed that he is the father and eventually bears him a son.

At first Mariam hates Laila, but grows to love her. Tariq, having fled to protect his parents, reappears. Rasheed almost kills Laila and is killed in return by Mariam. Laila, Tariq and the two children escape to Pakistan, but Mariam accepts her fate and is executed by the Taliban.

The composer, Sheila Silver, is a Seattle native long active on the US east coast. She worked for years to make Hosseini’s book into an opera. After stints in India studying Hindustani music (akin to that of Pakistan and Afghanistan), and subsequent Covid-related delays, the work has finally come to life in Seattle.

Stephen Kitsakos’s libretto does a pretty good job of stripping down Hosseini’s long and complex novel into a tight narrative. Director Roya Sadat, an Afghan filmmaker until 2021, undertakes her first opera with mostly successful results. Misha Kachman’s designs, evoking Kabul and its surrounding mountains, work well, although the constantly rotating central set piece grows annoying. Jonathan Dean’s titles are sparse and erratically timed. Seattle Opera offers endless ancillary materials, from advance articles, programme essays, public discussions, an exhibition of Afghan art and appeals for Afghan charities.

By and large the young cast do justice to this ambitious story. The soprano Maureen McKay shines as Laila. As Mariam, the mezzo Karin Mushegain is adequate but vocally weaker. Other principal singers, all fine, are John Moore as Rasheed, Rafael Moras as Tariq, Ashraf Sewailam and Sarah Coit. Viswa Subbaraman conducts.

The main drawback is Silver’s music. She has spiced her basically western idiom with elements based on Indian ragas, drones and rhythms, plus Indian flute and a battery of Indian percussion.

But for this longtime lover of Indian music, little of this was assertively audible. Though the score grew more lyrical and dramatic in the second act, it remained blandly understated. The opera was a labour of love, but what could and should have been a powerful statement remained mired in western gentility.

★★★☆☆ 

To March 11, seattleopera.org