[working titles]: Simone at the Museum

Simone at the Museum

11.23.24 • 7:30 PM • Coffey St Studio

Composed by Alaina Ferris
libretto by Alaina Ferris
music direction by Mila henry

Simone at the Museum is a chamber opera that follows the story of Simone, an art history professor in Brooklyn who is struggling with her life and PTSD from sexual assault. Simone goes on a trip to Paris with her two best friends, Amelia and Rose, to do a little work, but also see the sights and enjoy one another’s company. The three visit the musée d’Orsay, where they see the painting Ramses dans son Harem, which inspires a conversation about how the feminist movement has and hasn’t progressed since 1949, the year Simone de Beauvoir’s book ‘The Second Sex’ was published. In so doing, they summon a feminist vampire named Gustave who lives with a republic of vampires beneath the museum, ruled by Queen-elect Simone de Beauvoir.

In Part I of the chamber opera, they are in Brooklyn outside a Planned Parenthood the morning before the traveling to Paris; In Part II, they time travel to a literary salon in 1949, awaiting Simone de Beauvoir, the night her book The Second Sex is published; Part III takes place beneath the musée d’Orsay, where they meet Simone de Beauvoir, queen-elect of the republic of vampires.

At its core, Simone at the Museum is a fantastical and absurd tragedy about the cycle of violence and violence against women, and what one woman chooses to do with her own history.