Catch operatic heartbreak at Mae Naak's Sumet Jumsai-shaped visual opera
A woman waits, clings, refuses to loosen her grip on love even after death draws its line. That woman is Mae Naak, Thailand’s most infamous spirit, and she returns to the stage this March after more than a decade away, last seen here in 2011. S. P. Somtow wrote the opera in 2003 and it has become his most celebrated work, unsettling Bangkok audiences three times and travelling as far as London. Now the production returns for a fifth run, with the composer directing his own creation. Sumet Jumsai shapes the visual world, balancing folklore with operatic sweep, while Trisdee na Patalung leads the score. The performance unfolds in English, accompanied by Thai and English supertitles, so every gasp and heartbreak lands exactly as intended.March 4-5. B500-2,000 via here. Great Hall, King's College International School Bangkok, 7.30pm