In a continuance of the Bay Area’s West Edge Opera “Aperture” series, frequent collaborators and UC Davis alums Ryan Suleiman (Ph.D. music, ‘20) and Cristina Fríes (M.A. creative writing, ‘19) have once again received positive reviews for an excerpt of their new opera project, The School for Girls Who Lost Everything in the Fire.

The opera is about three homeless girls held hostage after a terrible fire with elements of coming-of age amid fear of the unknown adult world.

San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joshua Kosman wrote, “As in their previous collaboration [Moon, Bride, Dogs], Fríes and Suleiman boast a shared theatrical approach—expressive, insinuating, full of enigmatic fervor—that draws a listener immediately under their spell. I can’t wait to hear the completed opera.”

Steven Winn of the San Francisco Classical Voice wrote, “Much of the subject matter reflected suffering all too present in the news and our collective consciousness, from warfare and homelessness to drug addiction and mental illness. No one could say the composers and librettists were taking a walk in the park.”