Any story that has at its heart a challenge to an established system is going to resonate with me.

Be it from pride or hubris or dogged stubbornness I cannot help but respect their strength and determination.

This opera is about people who stand up for themselves against the established order. All for different reasons and all with different results.

How can you not like that?

–Philip Akin

Librettist’s Note

In August 2018, I was a participant in Tapestry Opera’s LIBLAB. I was getting married that September and was trying for my first child. Little did I know, it was the beginning of a three year journey to holding my beautiful son in my arms. When I was conceiving the earliest iteration of this opera, that LIBLAB, I knew that I wanted to write about the African ancestors whose graves became the Atlantic Ocean in the middle passage. The energy of those hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people have to have changed that water forever.

I also thought about the children; the babies who died there and how much I wanted to scoop one of them into my body and give them life in this world as the child I longed for. I longed for life for my ancestors. I wrote the bulk of the libretto for this opera while my child was in my body; he has been most informative in this work. So I thank him, my Gyasi, for informing a work I hope he’ll one day see.

I thank Ian for taking this personal and epic journey with me as the best creative partner I could ever ask for. Philip, Michael, and Jaime for believing in this right from the beginning, and to every single artist and administrator who has worked to make this dream possible. I can’t thank you enough.

– Kanika Ambrose

Composer’s Note

The act of making new opera is both a celebration of its 400 year history and a simultaneous acknowledgement of what those 400 years have largely been missing–the stories of a wide diversity of peoples and human experiences. Of the Sea is one piece in a growing body of new operatic work that pushes the borders of storytelling by inviting us to experience the humanity of diverse communities in our increasingly globalized and interconnected world. I hope that sitting in the theatre you will feel a deep connection to all that is wonderful and exciting about historic opera: dramatic musical storytelling with the human voice and all of its power and beauty at the centre. But I also hope you will dive deep with us and journey through waters of imagination and civilization and re-emerge with a renewed wonder at your own life and the incredible, fearsome world in which we all live.

– Ian Cusson

“a very considerable achievement”
— Opera Canada

“the story is one of profound depth and beauty”
— Schmopera

“a perfect parable for our time”
— Barcza Blog

Program
Tapestry Opera Website