Mỹ Lai

On March 16, 1968, the United States Army killed over 500 unarmed civilians in the hamlet of Mỹ Lai, Vietnam. The unimaginable brutality of the event impacted all those who witnessed it firsthand, including helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, who, against orders, intervened to save Vietnamese lives. Thompson’s story is the basis of the opera Mỹ Lai, composed by Jonathan Berger (music) and Harriet Scott Chessman (libretto) for Kronos Quartet, Vietnamese multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, and vocalist Rinde Eckert. This definitive recording of Mỹ Lai captures the visceral, phantasmal depictions of Thompson’s grief, horror, and guilt as he is haunted by persistent memories of that cataclysmic day, half a world and nearly four decades away. Tense and unforgiving, Mỹ Lai is “a gripping affair, beginning to end” (New York Times). Presented here alongside recollections by Vietnamese survivor Trần Văn Đức, it is a memorial to all the Mỹ Lai villagers killed on that grim day.

Click here to read a historical essay by Fred Kaplan.

Track Listing

101	Mỹ Lai Lullaby	Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ	07:55
102	First Landing: Flight	Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ	09:37
103	First Landing: Descent	Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ	07:04
104	First Landing: The Ditch	Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ	14:14
105	Second Landing: Hovering	Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ	08:29
106	Second Landing: Bunker	Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ	12:32
107	Third Landing: Postcard	Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ	05:16
108	Third Landing: Fishing	Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ	05:39