“An American Soldier” by Huang Ruo is a striking timely piece. It is a tale about identity and what it means to be American—or to be perceived as such. At its core, it proffers a grimly pessimistic view of society, in which Pvt. Danny Chen, a New Yorker, was racially harassed, abused, and assaulted by fellow soldiers stationed in Afghanistan in 2011. As in the opera, the real Chen died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound; it was only when his tormentors were court-martialed that the full extent of his suffering became painfully known.

“An American Soldier” was originally commissioned by Washington National Opera, where it premiered in 2014. The present release is an expanded version and marks the beginning of a new partnership between Platoon and the American Composers Orchestra.

Modern Tragedy

Though the narrative is non-linear and interspersed with flashbacks, the underlying theme bears a certain resemblance to “Madama Butterfly,” in which the opera rather curiously finds a predecessor. If anything, “An American Soldier” is like a modern, critical response to the East-West dynamic typified by Puccini.

That said, the libretto is not without moments of didacticism, which can come across as heavy-handed or even pedantic. Danny’s monologues, for instance, appear overly expository: “I’m an American, a real American, I’ll be a soldier for all the world to see.”

The implications of such platitudinous lines are hard to judge, and I hesitate to take them at face value. Together with the embedded narrative, they may be seen to express elements of alienation—as a Brechtian device—which a staged performance, naturally, is better equipped to convey. But the problem remains: without visuals, the libretto by Tony Award-winner David Henry Hwang feels serviceable but incomplete, if not misread on its own.

“Dimensionalist” Polyvalence

Musically, “An American Soldier” is extraordinarily polyvalent, though it lacks—by its very structure—a clear trajectory toward a melodically and dramatically shaped climax. There is Danny Chen’s suicide, but for obvious reasons, it refuses to grow into a voyeuristic spectacle. Instead, the performance emphasis is on speech, and composer Huang Ruo, with his 38-piece orchestra, aims for the theatrical as much as the operatic.

Ruo’s “dimensionalism,” as he calls it, proposes an immersive experience which—technically—goes beyond traditional composition methods. The soundscape includes fractured military fanfares, a palimpsest of Asian influences, as well as eerie or otherwise unconventional harmonics.

In Search of a Moral Compass

The vocal requirements are equally diverse, and Platoon’s cast benefits, first and foremost, from the presence of Brian Vu’s highly sympathetic Pvt. Danny Chen. His malleable timbre conveys both a sense of vulnerability and determination, which from his very first appearance (“No one’s listening”) becomes constitutive of his portrayal.

Chen’s mother is sung by Nina Yoshida Nelsen, who typifies motherly resilience and—in an emotional, though slightly toned down finale—closes the opera with her gently voiced lullaby of “Sleep now, little one.”

Hannah Cho’s radiant soprano gives depth to Josephine, Danny’s girlfriend, while Alex DeSocio impersonates the primary antagonist. DeSocio walks a fine line to avoid caricature; his part—from a dramatic perspective—is functional at best, confined as it is to the limits of chilling banality and malice. This is, if you will, imputable to Ruo and his librettist. Yet it might have been worthwhile to expose the mechanics of cruelty—not to elicit sympathy—by giving Sgt. Aaron Marcum a more nuanced profile.

The performance is expertly held together by Carolyn Kuan, whose baton navigates the hybrid score with its Western orchestration, Chinese musical textures and vocal stylings. “An American Soldier” is, in short, an experiment in many ways—both sonically and conceptually in its attempt to make the personal tragedy of Danny Chen an indictment of American society, whose moral compass more than ever begs to be reset.