The Bonesetter's Daughter is a multi-generational family epic that explores one family's history through three generations of mothers and daughters. The opera is set in China during the years before the Communist revolution, framed by the memories and forgotten history of an elderly Chinese mother in present-day San Francisco. The story sweeps from fable-like past to factual present, from Chinese village to urban America. Shifting times and locales are linked by a recurring quartet of women: a girl, a young woman, a mother and an ageless, ghost-spirit known as Precious Auntie. They are the bones of this family throughout time and become the mothers and daughters in each generation.
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