It’s been 50 years since the massacre, and since Hugh Thompson and his helicopter crew stopped it from being far worse. Now, as the opera plays around the country, traditional Vietnamese instrument expert Van-Anh Vanessa Vo explains why it’s so important. “As a child in Hanoi, Vietnam, Vo learned about the My Lai Massacre in school and uses instruments made out of old artillery shells in the opera, which she described as a memorial to the murdered civilians as well as Thompson and his crew.”