A wasp larva slowly eats the body of an old spider.

Maude relates her horrible experience with Tony the tenor, and vows never to be with a man like him again.

Both Purcell’s and Virgil’s versions of Dido and Aeneas feature an Aeneas who is a man of action. He is what he does, in contrast to Dido, who is what she feels. Aeneas and Dido tries to imagine Aeneas’s interior life. What drives Aeneas to choose an uncertain quest for a new homeland over Dido’s offer of love and country? His heart has been tur...

Content warning: execution, incest, murder, sexual assault, slavery, torture, violence

Beatrice Chancy is a historical drama based upon the true story of the Cenci family of Rome, circa 1600. The story is set on a plantation in Nova Scotia during the last days of slavery, circa 1800, with the heroine Beatrice as the half-caste daughter of her...

Content warning: blood, gun violence, murder

Pedro Carmona, a young surgeon and son of a prominent Portuguese general, has escaped military service in Angola in 1968 by fleeing to Toronto with his upper-class wife Constanza. In order to survive, he has taken two jobs while he retrains to qualify as a doctor. The opera begins as Constanza—sick...

Seeking his wife Eurydice in the underworld, Orpheus implores Hades to let him bring her back to life. Hades gives in reluctantly, on condition that Orpheus not look back at Eurydice while she is being led back to earth. The reunited couple begin their journey back. Hades praises the peacefulness of the underworld over the turbulence of life on ...

Pirate Song tells the true story of two 18th-century female pirates, Mary Read of England and Ann Bonny of Ireland. To go to sea, they disguised themselves as men, and mixed business with pleasure by becoming lovers in 1720 while aboard a pirate ship captained by Calico Jack Rackham. When attacked by the British crown later that year in Jamaica,...

Leah and Roy, a young couple, arrive at Mona and Ari’s immaculate home, where Leah has been hired as a maid. The jealous Roy tries to get Leah to skip her first day on the job, but Leah, a practical punctual poet, is having none of it. Mona whisks Leah off on a dizzying tour of her duties. Husband Ari is at home, feeling sick and neglected. Leah...

Content warning: abduction, sexual assault, violence

Europa was a Phoenician princess who was seduced and borne off to Crete by Zeus. There she bore him three sons, who became the founding fathers of Europe. It's telling that European civilization, which has been a mixed blessing for the rest of the world, was founded upon what could be seen ...

The contemporary youth opera Pandora’s Locker is inspired by the Greek myth of Pandora’s Box, in which a young woman’s curiosity leads to the unleashing of all the world’s evils. It is a simple, archetypal myth, which reflects our own hunt for knowledge and the potential for disaster upon its discovery. This search for information - keys to the ...

This opera for children combines three fairy tales collected by the Grimm brothers: Rapunzel, Little Red Cap, and Rumpelstiltskin, all woven together with some of the brothers' real-life history.

Il Giudizio di Pigmalione (The Judgment of Pygmalion) was inspired by the myth of the sculpture Pygmalion as told in Ovid’s Metamorphosis:

“He made, with marvellous art, an ivory statue, As white as snow, and gave it greater beauty Than any girl could have, and fell in love with his own workmanship.”

This setting of the myth (the libretto ...

This children's opera adapts Tolkien's beloved classic The Hobbit.

Inertia is a story about elderly isolation and perceptions of death and a meditation on stagnation, dying, love, and friendship. It tells the story of two elderly neighbours, Evelyn and Addison, who live next door to each other for decades but have little interaction with each other or anyone. When Death comes to collect the two, he instead deci...

Three young archaeologists lost in the Egyptian desert unravel the ancient myth of Isis in an effort to save their dying professor. Immersed in the epic struggle of a distant past, they discover the healing power of ancient wisdom.

The Bells of Baddeck follows the great inventor Alexander Graham Bell from his fledging start, through his inspiring teaching, his experiments, and his love for his wife Mabel, to their settling in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. They meet the Scots of Cape Breton Island and fall in love with their music and Gaelic charm!















Bu...

Content warning: infant death, suicidal thoughts

In the summer of 2007, CBC investigators Mary Wiens and John Nicol brought an enthralled listening audience the tale of a mummified baby found in the floorboards of an East Toronto home.  Further investigation to uncover the origins of the child, now known as “Baby Kintyre” revealed a cast of c...

The Mummer’s Masque is a contemporary interpretation of various mummering traditions incorporating dance, music, drama, stage combat and puppetry.  With a new libretto fashioned from various historic sources, the music is a blend of contemporary opera and traditional folk styles.  It is also the only known example of a classical solo for the New...

Content warning: abuse, death, incarceration, sex trafficking, sex work

Angel's Bone follows the plight of two angels whose nostalgia for earthly delights has, mysteriously, brought them back to our world. Battered and bruised from their long journey, they are found by a husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. X. E.

Facing a financial crisis, the c...

Content warning: attempted suicide, death, drowning, natural disaster

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) was an explorer, nomad, journalist, novelist, passionate romantic, Sufi, and one of the most unique and unusual women of her era. At age twenty, after the death of her mother, brother and father, she left her life in Switzerland for a nomadic ...

Content warning: death, injury, paralysis, sexual violence, suicide attempt, violence

Based on the film by Lars von Trier, Breaking the Waves tells the story of Bess McNeill, a religious young woman with a deep love for her husband Jan, a handsome oil rig worker in 1970's Scotland. When Jan becomes paralyzed in an off-shore accident, Bess’s m...

Proving Up, based on a story by Karen Russell, is an opera about the American Dream, told through the story of Nebrasken homesteaders in the 1870s. A family dreams of "proving up" and obtaining the deed to the land they've settled. They obsessively list the requirements of the Homestead Act: five years of harvest, a sod house dwelling, and perha...

Content warning: apocalypse, death, depression, suicide

At her wedding reception, the beautiful but depressed Justine spots a red star in the sky. It is the planet Melancholia, which is on a collision course with Earth. The bridegroom Michael tries to calm her down with his love, her mother Gaby poisons her with her darkness, and her sister C...

Content warning: abuse, death, fire, violence

Fanny and Alexander is a grand opera in two acts, adapted from the film by Ingmar Bergman by Mikael Karlsson and Royce Vavrek, with support from the Bergman Estate and artistic consultation from Cinematograph AB (Ingmar Bergman Jr. and Claes du Rietz).

ACT 1

Christmas at the Ekdahls.  Helena...

JFK explores the final twelve hours of the 35th president’s life and time spent in Fort Worth, Texas. But far from being a musical biography, JFK is a portrait of a precipice. The fleeting moments of hope before a cosmic page turned, optimism faltered, and America was forced into a new and uncertain era. The opera is a portrayal of the man as we...

Content warning: ableism including ableist slurs, abuse (familial/sibling) alcoholism, cannibalism, disordered eating, drug use (marijuana), fatphobia, gun violence, sexual harassment of a minor, starvation, strong language

Based on a short story by Judy Budnitz, Dog Days tells a post-apocalyptic tale of a typical American family. The country...

Content warning: sex

Based on Carlos Reygada’s Acclaimed 2007 film Stellet Licht. Set within a Mennonite community in northern Mexico, the opera follows a pious husband and father, Johan, who’s strongly held spiritual obligation to his marriage, family, and community is put to the test when he falls in love with another woman from his faith.

Based on the 1970s television movie and novelization by Gail Rock, The House Without a Christmas Tree follows the story of 10-year-old Addie, whose one wish for Christmas is for her father to finally allow a Christmas tree in their family home.

In December of 1946, Addie is thrilled to win the class Christmas tree in a contest, but is disappo...

Content warning: homophobia, sex, sexual harassment, strong language

Strip Mall is part of a serial dramatic work... with librettist Royce Vavrek called Strangers in Many Ways, which is comprised of short operatic episodes such as this. Other episodes include A Song for Wade (This is not that song), written for Alarm Will Sound, and Bluetooth...

Content warning: colonization, death

Inspired by interviews with Houston–based NASA astronauts, scientists, and engineers, O Columbia traces a history of dreamers and explorers–from Sir Walter Raleigh journeying to the New World, to a Houston teenager experiencing communion, and later, heartbreak, with a Columbia space shuttle astronaut, to f...

Adapted from and further inspired by the short story Mermaid in the Jar by Sheila Heti, this triptych of short chamber operas (Mermaid in the Jar, Prairie Dogs, and Fine and Dandy) takes place entirely within an eleven-year-old girl’s bedroom as she overhears her parents’ volatile conversations. Over the course of a few days, a mermaid she recei...

Content warning: terrorism, racism

An adaptation of Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film of the same name, Adoration follows Simon, an orphaned high school student. As part of a dramatic writing exercise, Simon’s teacher encourages him to appropriate details from a historical terrorist attack as an imaginary event perpetrated by his parents. When his stor...

Content warning: attempted suicide, death, PTSD, war

Based on the real-life experiences of US Marine Christian Ellis, Fallujah follows the story of fictional USMC Lance Corporal Philip Houston. After a failed suicide attempt, Philip experiences flashbacks to the horrors of the Iraq war while waiting out a 72-hour holding period in a veterans ...

Content warning: death, sexual harassment and violence, suicide, violence
Set on Pelee Island, Lake Erie, Canada near the end of the 18th century, The Vinedressers is based on true stories and an Indigenous myth from Pelee Island. Taking place at the Vin Villa vineyard, home, and wine cellar, as well as the Pelee Island lighthouse amongst the m...

Pauline explores the life and final days of write and performer E. Pauline Johnson (1861-1913).  Johnson was of Kanien'keháka (Mohawk) and English heritage, and wrote and performed poetry that explored her biracial identity.

"In the libretto for Pauline, Margaret Atwood reconstructs the scene of Pauline’s final days in her adopted home, Vanco...

In this short and intense scene, Anna begins singing quietly about her lover Yuri. Her husband Alexei enters, jarring her, but she recovers and offers him food. Passion fruit, like when they first met. Alexei is unmoved and pushes the dish away. He’s taken the children away somewhere safe. Anna is shocked and devastated, crying out for her child...

Content warning: mentions of death, murder of a child

Teenagers Léa and Ivy explore a struggling travelling carnival while waiting to meet up with Léa's overworked mother Manon. In the run-down haunted house the girls stumble upon the ghost of Marcel, a young boy who met a violent end in the basement of his school. Marcel asks to the girls to...

A dialogue for three voices and a messenger, serving as a prequel to Shakespeare’s King Lear.  Sisters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia discuss their plans and hopes as they wait to be summoned for an audience with their ageing father.

The Weaving Maiden is based on the Chinese folk tale of "The Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden."

The Cowherd, a kind and hardworking peasant whose only friend is a water buffalo, falls in love with and then marries a Weaving Maiden who is really a celestial princess. They start a family and live happily together until her royal family comes to f...