The most adventurous of the lot — in both music and libretto — was R. Timothy Brady’s poignant, highly poetic Edalat Square, a disquisition on the torture and hanging of two Iranian teenage boys for homosexuality. With keening strings and an overwhelming performance by Vanessa Beaumont as the wailing, distraught mother, Brady used almost calligraphic [...]

R. Timothy Brady speaks with Wanda Yang Temko in Atlanta, Georgia before the premiere of Edalat Square: Opera in One Act.

in The Emory Wheel
Brady’s fiercely atonal work juxtaposed classical Persian singing with Western dissonances to heighten the emotional intensity of the piece. Although the opera followed chronological events, the movements centered on various moods: religious confusion, guilt, motherly worry and judgment.
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“Globalization is unavoidable, and by helping others elsewhere, we help ourselves here.” [R. Timothy Brady] explains that the opera is not an indictment of Islam, but only of the way it is practiced - some would say distorted - in Iran.
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Brady, who used to be more traditionally involved in GLBT activism, sees his opera as a form of activism. ‘In 2004, 2005, after the election, I became disenchanted … I wanted to think of other avenues to express myself socio-politically,’ he says. ‘I thought this would be a good way to continue my activism in [...]