Van Magazine
By Olivia Giovetti
May 25, 2022
Vân-Ánh Võ (Illustration by Olivia Giovetti)
“Written by composer Jonathan Berger and librettist Harriet Scott Chessman for the Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, and Vân-Ánh Võ, and premiered in the same year that Shriver saw wearing a sombrero as protest, ‘Mỹ Lai’ is an example of a work written by two white Americans who are able to challenge the status quo from within. There is no ‘Miss Saigon’ orientalism lurking underneath the guise of a love story; no Wagnerian glory-cum-terror (even as an ironic commentary on the military industrial complex) of ‘Apocalypse Now.’”