World premiere

A contemporary opera inspired by the lives of Balkan sworn virgins

Created by Karmina Šilec / Commissioned and performed by Kitka

Baba Development Workshop photos
Berkeley Repertory Theater's GrounD Floor

Photos by Dorian Šilec Petek

About the program

Commissioned and performed by Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble, BABA: The Life and Death of Stana is a contemporary opera by internationally-acclaimed Slovenian director, composer, author, and conductor Karmina Šilec. 

BABA is inspired by real and imagined stories of Balkan sworn virgins (women who live as men after taking vows of chastity and celibacy). The tradition of sworn virgins is rooted in a centuries-old social code of law present in remote rural regions of Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Serbia. Born as women, life circumstances—including the loss of male relatives in blood feuds or a desire to escape an oppressive arranged marriage—led these individuals to become men to gain the honors, rights, privileges, and freedoms of community patriarchs. The motives for this gender transformation were traditionally social responsibility and family honor, as opposed to sexual preference or feelings of being male by nature. BABA brings to light a disappearing practice of women sacrificing their sexuality and transforming themselves into men as a means of survival in an isolated, dangerous, impoverished, and intensely patriarchal and gender-binary part of the world.

An innovative, non-narrative take on Balkan epic story-singing traditions, BABA explores themes of gender, otherness, choice, virginity, sexual identity, and the complexities of interpreting these Balkan gender-transformation stories through a contemporary, liberal, Western gaze.  

Estimated run time: 2 hours and 15 minutes with a 15 minute intermission

CONTENT ADVISORY: This performance includes actions of smoking, drinking, chest binding, forceful drumming, and use of theatrical fog/haze and sometimes intense, adult language including references to sexuality, birth, child abuse, and death.

Creative team

Author, Composer and Director: Karmina Šilec

Performed by Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble
Kelly Atkins, Caitlin Tabancay Austin, Leslie Bonnett, Briget Boyle, Barbara Byers, Shira Cion, Juliana Graffagna, Erin Lashnits Herman, Shira Kammen, Janet Kutulas, Maclovia Quintana, and Beth Wilmurt

Scenographer: Dorian Šilec Petek
Movement Advisor: Sidra Bell
Assistant Movement Advisor: Sarah Lisette Chiesa
Projection Design: Dorian Šilec Petek, Miha Likar
Lighting Design & Technical Director: G. Chris Griffin
Stage Manager: Alex Seidel
Costume Design: Karmina Šilec & Vesna Novitović
Percussion Coach: Rumen “Sali” Shopov

More about Karmina Šilec

One of the most exciting and provocative exponents of the contemporary music and theater scene, Karmina Šilec is the artistic director and conductor of Carmina Slovenica, New Music Theater Choregie and Ensemble ¡Kebataola!. With her artistic concept Choregie and a research- oriented process, she has brought freshness and originality to the world of vocal music and theater. As a conductor and director, she has had projects with numerous theater companies, opera houses and ensembles worldwide. Her interests lie in music-driven theater, music that refers or reacts to other fields, the human voice as a central fascination, and the exploration of different music and theater languages.

Šilec has received two Music Theatre NOW awards, the Robert Edler Prize for Choral Music and, together with her companies, the Golden Mask and more than 20 other international awards. Her ensembles have performed at such highly esteemed venues and festivals as the Dresdner Musikfestspiele; Festival d’Automne à Paris; Holland Festival; Hong Kong Cultural Centre; Melbourne International Arts Festival; Moscow Easter Festival; Operadagen Rotterdam; Prototype Festival; the Ruhrtriennale; St. Petersburg Philharmonia Grand Hall; Teatro Colón; Teresa Carreño Theater; and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space. In 2017, she was nominated for the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities.

karminasilec.com

More about sworn virgins

The Collector - Sworn-Virgins: Women Who Decide to Live as Men in Rural Balkans
Jill Peters - A Solemn Declaration, Sworn Virgins of Albania 2009 - 2013
Pepa Hristova - Sworn Virgins
Slate - Sworn Virgins: Men by Choice in the Balkans
BBC World Service - The Last of the Albania’s “Sworn Virgins”
National Geographic - Sworn Virgins
NYTimes - With More Freedoms, Young Women in Albania Shun the Tradition of “Sworn Virgins”

The commissioning, creation, and presentation of BABA is supported, in part, by The Hewlett50 Arts Commissions, The National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, the City of Oakland Cultural Funding Program, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, Mills College Performing Arts, The Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Ground Floor Artist Residencies, and a global village of generous individual donors.