Tapestry’s TAP:EX, or Tapestry Explorations, series is dedicated to finding new angles and new perspectives in order to carry opera beyond the 21st century. To that end, artistic director Michael Mori wanted to collaborate with leaders in other genres. For this third installment in the series: punk rock.

Mori picked Mike Haliechuk and Jonah Falco of 2009 Polaris Prize winning band F*cked Up to collaborate. They were brought onto his radar via a rock opera they had written for Broadsheet Music: A Year in Review, the 2014 Arts & Crafts collaboration with the Canadian Opera Company.

From the beginning, the intention was to create a fusion of punk and opera that stood on its own, something both new to audiences and - as Jonah Falco put it “acceptable” - as well. They refused to simply “punkify” opera or “opera-fy” punk. Haliechuk and Falco wrote the first half of the show, while librettist David James Brock and composer Ivan Barbotin contributed the other half.

Falco admitted he and his bandmate Haliechuk had never given their musical notation this level of detail before, and they gave themselves a crash course in Sibelius in order to produce a score for rehearsals. They were assisted by Jordan de Souza, whose musical intuitions meshed with what Haliechuk and Falco had intended for the piece.

“What we started talking about was the whole concept of art and this idea of creating music in 21st-century Toronto, and what that means and how people perceive this idea of glory when you’re an artist, when you’re a rocker, or certainly when you’re an opera singer, but the truth is there’s actually this incredible struggle to actually just get to that point that nobody ever sees. It’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“In writing our piece for Metallurgy, all of the same ideas about narrative connection in our music and words held up remarkably under the pressure of being transplanted to the form of opera.

To me, punk is distilled not so much in the, like, fabrication of safety pins through your eyeball and stuff like that- which is great, too, we love that- but it’s more about the transition of power to an otherwise untapped human resource. The fact that our half was basically written by two amateurs, y’know? That’s kind of a punk thing.”

- Jonah Falco

"Nothing comes from nothing, and if we don't allow ourselves the freedom to experiment, collaborate, and try new things, opera will remain the same forever. All the players in this project are geniuses of their genre, and I'm very excited to see what kind of electricity they create together."

- Michael Mori

"...a big winner..."
- The Globe and Mail

"I loved it, and I think I was far from being the only one."
- Jenna Douglas, Schmopera

Metallurgy - Tapestry Opera