COR
Operas
Content warning: misgendering, mentions of sexual assault, and implied violence
Chrysaor and Pegasus, children of the gorgon Medusa, have been living with their aunts Euryale and Stheno. They receive a message from their dead mother telling the story of her assault and murder by their father Poseidon. Rejecting his mother’s family, Chrysaor g...
Chrysaor and Pegasus, children of the gorgon Medusa, have been living with their aunts Euryale and Stheno. They receive a message from their dead mother telling the story of her assault and murder by their father Poseidon. Rejecting his mother’s family, Chrysaor g...
Composer: Colin McMahon
Librettist: Charlie Petch
A ‘Hitchcock-style thriller’ for baritone and soprano, Nigredo Hotel is “the story of a neurosurgeon, a man of science, who has lost his soul. One night he thinks he has hit a child on the road and hides out in a decrepit, Hitchcockian motel run by a monstrous concierge called Sophie. The terrifying crone — his anima — locks him into his room an...
Composer: Nic Gotham
Librettist: Ann-Marie MacDonald
Content warning: death, ableism
Old Merk feels his age. He will die soon. He tries to prepare Pauline, his mentally disabled adult daughter, for the inevitable. What, if anything, will she remember of him? Of the house they share? Of their life together? Will she remember her father’s love? Will she remember the embrace of home? Will she unde...
Old Merk feels his age. He will die soon. He tries to prepare Pauline, his mentally disabled adult daughter, for the inevitable. What, if anything, will she remember of him? Of the house they share? Of their life together? Will she remember her father’s love? Will she remember the embrace of home? Will she unde...
Composer: Elisabeth Mehl Greene
Librettist: Nick Carpenter
Content warning: colonial violence, colonialsm, death, illness
1828, Notre Dame Bay, on the northeast shore of Newfoundland. William Cormack, an explorer and anthropologist, has recently created the Beothuk Institute: an organization designed to prevent the extinction of the original inhabitants of the island. After learning that a Beothuk wo...
1828, Notre Dame Bay, on the northeast shore of Newfoundland. William Cormack, an explorer and anthropologist, has recently created the Beothuk Institute: an organization designed to prevent the extinction of the original inhabitants of the island. After learning that a Beothuk wo...
Composer: Dean Burry
Librettist: Yvette Nolan
Content warning: death, murder, suicide, xenophobia
Jason, an army captain and now war-hero, is returning home after years of war and an uncertain future. His interpreter and lover M’dea and their son Chase accompany him to a new life in the West. Jason begins a political career, working alongside the President and Dahlia, the President’s bea...
Jason, an army captain and now war-hero, is returning home after years of war and an uncertain future. His interpreter and lover M’dea and their son Chase accompany him to a new life in the West. Jason begins a political career, working alongside the President and Dahlia, the President’s bea...
Composer: John Harris
Librettist: Marjorie Chan
Content warning: terminal illness
This is not a biographical opera, it is an exploration of an emotional journey. At age 5, Jacqueline has instant chemistry and sparks fly when she meets her cello. Their relationship grows stronger and closer, and Jacqueline matures into a charismatic and likeable teen, powerful on major stages. Soon she is a...
This is not a biographical opera, it is an exploration of an emotional journey. At age 5, Jacqueline has instant chemistry and sparks fly when she meets her cello. Their relationship grows stronger and closer, and Jacqueline matures into a charismatic and likeable teen, powerful on major stages. Soon she is a...
Composer: Luna Pearl Woolf
Librettist: Royce Vavrek
Based on "The Handless Maiden," a mythic story found in cultures around the world, and a continuation of the events in Me and You (Madonna of the Wilderness).
After seven years of wandering, the girl (now known as Madonna) has regained her hands through loving self-sacrifice. She’s returned to the cabin of her childhood, where her journey beg...
After seven years of wandering, the girl (now known as Madonna) has regained her hands through loving self-sacrifice. She’s returned to the cabin of her childhood, where her journey beg...
Composer: Benton Roark
Librettist: Katherine Koller
Content warning: racism, colonialism, violence, death
In 1880’s China, Lai Gwan, a young impoverished woman, stands on the brink of momentous change. Her dying mother urges her to respect and honour the memory of her father, Manli, whose disappearance to the New World haunts them both.
Armed with the hope that she will find her father aliv...
In 1880’s China, Lai Gwan, a young impoverished woman, stands on the brink of momentous change. Her dying mother urges her to respect and honour the memory of her father, Manli, whose disappearance to the New World haunts them both.
Armed with the hope that she will find her father aliv...
Composer: Ka Nin Chan
Librettist: Mark Brownell
Content warning: death, suicide
Dragon’s Tale is the story of a young Chinese-Canadian woman (Xiao Lian) and her ailing father, both living in Toronto. Xiao Lian wakes up in the ancient past and witnesses the last days of one of China’s greatest poets, Qu Yuan. In doing so, she begins to understand her father and herself as she returns to a c...
Dragon’s Tale is the story of a young Chinese-Canadian woman (Xiao Lian) and her ailing father, both living in Toronto. Xiao Lian wakes up in the ancient past and witnesses the last days of one of China’s greatest poets, Qu Yuan. In doing so, she begins to understand her father and herself as she returns to a c...
Composer: Ka Nin Chan
Librettist: Mark Brownell
Get Stuffed is a comic opera about serious decisions, featuring vocalizing vegetables and a big helping of other opinionated edible characters, all competing to influence one child's daily diet. Written for 5 singing actors and 2 musicians, this opera is intended for family audiences and touring to schools with a focus on encouraging youth to ma...
Composer: Richard Payne
Librettist: Alexis Diamond
A box office worker longs to be on the stage. When the lead of the production is injured, she begs for her chance in the spotlight.
Composer: Jack Perla
Librettist: Ken Gass
This fifth installment of the Tapestry Explorations (TAP:EX) series offers a take on a Silicon Valley product launch, where audiences are the first to learn about Elysium, a new cloud-based technology that reimagines the afterlife as a perfect curation of our best memories. This fictional product draws attention to the modern world developing ne...
Composer: Benton Roark
Librettists: Debi Wong, Benton Roark
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Excerpts
Xiao Lian vows to look to the past and summons the great spirit of Qu Yuan. His spirit rises and assumes the form of Xiao Lian’s father.
Xiao Lian’s father bitterly reveals that he will die soon. Xiao Lian’s mother appears in spirit form and asks her to forgive her father. She speaks of their happiness together as a family in earlier times. As a child, Xiao Lian had a close connection with the Dragon Boat Festival, known as Duanwu and its hero, the ancient poet Qu Y...
Pegasus recounts a dream in which their mother Medusa asks them to find her severed head. They reflect on the harrowing circumstances of their birth and their relationship with their brother Chrysaor and father Poseidon.
Both Louise and Glenn are tired. They share stories about their nightmares.
A Gardener, lost in the wilderness, ends up at Madonna's cabin. She recognizes him as the man in her dreams and vows to heal him of his grief.
Xiao Lian is transported back to the ancient royal court, where she witnesses the majestic entrance of King Huai of Chu. Qu Yuan is at the peak of his power but is soon outfoxed by rival minister Zhang Yi. Qu Yuan is cast down and banished by his beloved king.
Qu Yuan wanders into the southern wilderness. As he travels, he composes a lament for himself and his lost position in court. In the present, Xiao Lian’s Father senses his end is near. Summoning up his strength, he joins with the spirit of Qu Yuan to tell the final chapter.
Her health fading, Shanawdithit wonders if she’ll be welcomed into the spirit world after so much time with the colonists. Cormack tells her he must leave, and Shanawdithit gives him a sketch of his house to carry with him. He leaves the room to pack. Shanawdithit hears the spirits of her people calling her name. It is time. One spirit in par...
Shanawdithit, dying, speaks to her ancestors. She is ready to leave this world.
Years later, Qu Yuan has earned the honour and respect of the people in a little fishing village on the river Miluo. Xiao Lian and a local villager strike up a conversation with Qu Yuan, and it is soon revealed that The Kingdom of Chu has been destroyed by its enemies. After learning this news, Qu Yuan’s heart breaks, and he drowns...
All hope is lost as the villagers return and collect Qu Yuan’s possessions. They take the scrolls containing his famous poetry to the Daoist temple, where they will be preserved forever. Xiao Lian returns to the present at the bedside of her dying father. With his encouragement and love, she finally recognizes the value of honourin...
The combined spirits of Qu Yuan and Father return and ask the audience to release them from their servitude. That freedom granted, they ascend into the heavens triumphantly.
Zach's hunger-hallucination, Part 3: Sultry French Fries interrupts the Trio to tempt Zach, but is pulled up short by Big Cheese. There's a new Sheriff in town.
Calliope and the Muses lead Eurydice C into her subconscious, to the memory of her first love.
In memory, Eurydice C's painter lover pushes her to allow him to paint her and make love to her, even though she is reluctant.
Eurydice C remembers different versions of her lover in an Arioso, Bourrée, and Passacaglia. She questions what might have been, before Calliope calls her back to the present.
Eurydice C is shown her Elysium with Orpheus in the garden - she is not sure she wants him there, but it fades before she can decide. The CEO brings her back to reality and closes the presentation.
A box office worker longs to be on the opera stage.
A box office worker longs to be on the stage. When the lead of the production is injured, she begs for her chance in the spotlight.
Zach's hunger-hallucination, Part 1: A life-size Chocolate Bar entices him... only to turn into a Carrot!
Zach's hunger-hallucination, Part 2: The Garden Trio (Apple, Carrot and Broccoli) treat Zach to a savoury song about vitamins.
Sitting by the fire, Merk tries to discover what his mentally disabled daughter will remember when he is no longer with her.
Zach's hunger-hallucination, Part 4: Big Cheese tries to convince Zach to eat healthy by crooning a song oozing with cheesy puns.
Zach's hunger-hallucination, Part 5: Food fight! The healthy and unhealthy foods fight over Zach. In the melee, Apple is struck by an airborne French fry.
Zach's hunger-hallucination, Part 6: Apple expires in true operatic fashion in Zach's arms. Zach grieves.
Lai Gwan dreams of the conflicting desires of her mother, father, Nichol and herself.
Delirious, Jackie envisions running to the ocean again through the fields, this time with her sister, Hilary. She asks that Hilary not tell Daniel about the disease.
Jackie tells us how she can blur the lines between fantasy and reality at will. She can escape the confines of her chair by dreaming of bathing in the sea. She wonders where Daniel is, and who he’s seeing.
In a dream state, M'dea recalls all she has done to survive.
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