Composer’s Note:

When a mysterious sailor returns to fulfill his promise, a lighthouse keeper’s daughter must choose between her conventional marriage and the mesmerizing allure of the sea.
The Lady from the Sea is adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s startlingly modern 19th Century masterpiece. With humor and raw emotion,The Lady from the Sea vibrantly dissects issues of choice, marriage, responsibility and freedom.

Ibsen’s play was inspired by a Danish folksong. This folk song is the musical springboard and reference point for the opera. Agnete and the Merman tells of a woman wooed by a merman to leave this surface world and come live with him, under the sea.