The Seattle Opera presents the world premiere of “A thousand splendid Suns”, a production adapted from Khaled Hosseini's book telling the story of two women whose lives are marked by the Taliban's brutal and repressive rule in the 1990s. But what started as a look back at a painful chapter in the history of filmmaker Roya Sadat’s history changed with the surge back to power of the hardline Islamists in August 2021. And it added new weight to the production, as the Taliban again placed an ever-tightening vice on women's liberties, despite vowing a departure from their infamous first reign. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES