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Daniel Kessner and Lionelle Hamanaka's Opera, The Camp Premieres in Los Angeles

Feb. 28, 2025

Daniel Kessner and Lionelle Hamanaka's opera The Camp was premiered on February 22-23 at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC) in Los Angeles. Additional performances will take place on March 1-2 at the same venue. 

The Camp is a new opera about an American family wrongfully imprisoned in 1942 and the power of collective resistance to injustice.

In 1942, during World War II, 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—two-thirds of whom were American citizens—were unjustly incarcerated in concentration camps within the United States. 

Created by librettist Lionelle Hamanaka, a descendant of camp survivors, and composer Daniel Kessner, The Camp tells the moving story of the Shimono family, Japanese Americans forcibly removed from their suburban home in Southern California. After Mas, a fisherman and the head of the household, is arrested by the FBI on suspicion of espionage, the family is reunited in a desolate incarceration camp. As the family struggles to survive the emotional and physical toll of their wrongful imprisonment, this poignant, new opera illuminates the remarkable strength of familial bonds and the power of collective resistance in the face of injustice. 

Performed in English, this captivating production, presented in partnership with JACCC, is directed by Diana Wyenn and features an ensemble of eleven gifted singers performing with a twenty-two-member orchestra conducted by Steve F. Hofer. 


Trailer: The Camp, an opera in two acts

To learn more about Daniel Kessner, visit universaledition.com.

Daniel Kessner
The Camp (2020)
an opera in two acts
libretto (Eng) by Lionelle Hamanaka
2S.Mz.A.6T.2Bar.2B
1.0.1.0-0.0.0.0-shakuhachi-perc-zith-str(6.6.6.4.2)
106'

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