Credits:

David Angus

Description:

McMillans Opera, Based on the Account of Sarah in Genesis Who Gave Birth at Age 90, Makes Its DebutJames McMillan, born in 1959, is also popular in Japan for his religious choral works. His chamber opera *Mercy*, composed between 2009 and 2010 at the request of the Boston Lyric Opera, is a quintessentially MacMillan work based on the story of Abraham and Sarah from the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. The story follows Abraham and Sarah, a childless couple who, at Sarahs suggestion, have their maidservant Hagar bear a child for Abraham; however, once she becomes a mother, Hagar begins to look down on Sarah. Later, three travelers appear and prophesy that 89-year-old Sarah will become pregnant. Abraham, who is 10 years older (!), undergoes circumcision at the age of 99 (!!), and succeeds in fathering a child at the age of 100 (!!!). Here, after presenting the episodein which Hagar and her so