Why Is She Like This?

Why Is She Like That? is a new opera by RUN OPERUN. It delves into the story of a silenced woman living in the shadow of her powerful family. Inspired by real events surrounding a forced lobotomy of Rosemary Kennedy – President J. F. Kennedy’s sister, it reveals the dark layers of social pressure, mental health, and female autonomy.

This intimate one-act opera for three singers unfolds a powerful emotional picture, arranged in non-chronological order and layered like an inner landscape of pain, anxiety, but also hope and reconciliation. The musical language of the composing duo Darja Kukal Moiseeva and Natálie Pleváková combines classical and electronic music, creating a contemporary, lively sound space.

Director and librettist Bára Viceníková leads the work toward an intimate experience that nevertheless resonates with universal questions: what do we have to change in order to be accepted? Where does adaptation end and loss of oneself begin? And why do we have a constant need to control and find acceptance difficult? The opera Why Is She Like That? combines historical inspiration with the urgency of the present. It is not only a testimony to a forgotten life but above all an invitation to listen – to those who have remained unheard.