Serina Mara ALONZO

The Lannang Archives’ mission and vision encourages me to persevere with one of my bigger projects, an opera libretto in Lannang-ue. The germ of this idea comes from a call to action given by a conductor back in 2017 who frequently talked about the need to empower the Tsinoy community through the arts; I was lost in search of my roots and identity when I joined the community choir in Chinatown and bought in on her vision for the ‘Chinese community’. During that time, I was already contemplating on libretto-writing after a phase with Toni Morrison’s novel and libretto, Beloved, but I only really found my momentum after the staging of Binondo: A Tsinoy Musical (2018), Noli Me Tangere: The Opera (2019), and A Singapore Trilogy (2019). Opera is my frustration, so I want to give back by producing work that empowers the bigger community and contributes to eventually revitalizing an endangered language. My inspirations are Two Odysseys (2019), Dragon Music Season (2020), Das Waisenkind/The Orphan (2009), and W.H. Auden, among others. Language revitalization through music is a personal advocacy, and it’s my hope that Lannang could someday have something like Language in Lyrics - Gaelic Songs of Nova Scotia and OPM Archives.