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  • About COR
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    • FAQ – For Users
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Canadian Opera Resource
Canadian Opera Resource
COR
Operas
Sanctuary Song
An opera for all ages. Sydney, an Asian elephant poached at a young age from the jungles of Indonesia, recalls her remarkable life in captivity, far from home, as her keeper of 22 years leads her on a journey towards sanctuary in the hills of Tennessee. A dynamic weaving of opera and dance unearths friendships lost and found and restores a stole...
Composer: Abigail Richardson
Librettist: Marjorie Chan

Sanctuary Song
Sanctuary Song
TAP:EX Metallurgy
Punk and operatic virtuosity collide in Tapestry’s third installment of the Tapestry Explorations (TAP:EX) series. Metallurgy is a collaboration between Jonah Falco and Mike Haliechuk of F*cked Up, the Polaris Prize-winning punk provocateurs, and two of Canada’s most masterful and versatile opera singers, mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó and tenor ...
Composers: Ivan Barbotin, Jonah Falco, Mike Haliechuk
Librettist: David James Brock

TAP:EX Metallurgy
TAP:EX Metallurgy
TAP:EX Metallurgy
TAP:EX Metallurgy
Nigredo Hotel
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

Nigredo Hotel
Playing Ball
An estranged father and daughter re-establish their relationship after he has suffered a stroke and can no longer speak. He tries to convey to her that he loves her and is sorry for the harm he caused her. She is still too hurt from their past to see what he is trying to say. Instead, she passes the time by reading a book. He finds another way o...
Composer: Norbert Palej
Librettist: Marcia Johnson

Playing Ball
Playing Ball
Medusa’s Children
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...
Composer: Colin McMahon
Librettist: Charlie Petch

Medusa’s Children
Pub Operas (The Sloans Project)
Content warning: murder, death, corpse

Composer Gareth Williams and librettist David James Brock created a site-specific promenade opera inspired by Glasgow's oldest pub, Sloans. The audience moves through the 250-year-old pub and encounters a series of scenes telling stories of love, loss, revenge and forgiveness.
Composer: Gareth Williams
Librettist: David James Brock

Pub Operas (The Sloans Project)
Pub Operas (The Sloans Project)
Dragon’s Tale
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...
Composer: Ka Nin Chan
Librettist: Mark Brownell

Dragon’s Tale
La Maupin
Content warning: contains depictions of gun violence, mentions of homophobia, transphobia, self-harm, attempted suicide, memory loss, illness, death, and violence

Julie d'Aubigny (1673-1707), more often known by her stage name "Mademoiselle Maupin," was a queer and gender non-conforming opera singer. She was a mezzo-soprano, and sang some of ...
Composer: Colin McMahon
Librettist: Camille Rogers

La Maupin
R.U.R. A Torrent of Light
The fictional tech company R.U.R., founded by couple Helena and Dom, dominates the A.I. software market and powers the now-ubiquitous androids that serve their human owners.

As Dom becomes more focused on growing R.U.R’s profits, Helena’s creative research leads to an unexpected technological breakthrough that pits the couples’ visions square...
Composer: Nicole Lizée
Librettist: Nicolas Billon

R.U.R. A Torrent of Light
Of the Sea
Content warning: descriptions of enslavement, violence, sexual violence, death

A father will do anything to save his daughter. Of the Sea follows the story of Maduka, his daughter Binyelum, and fellow Africans thrown overboard during the Middle Passage who now populate mythical underwater kingdoms that span the ocean floor. Amidst the waves, ...
Composer: Ian Cusson
Librettist: Kanika Ambrose

Of the Sea
Rosa
Content warning: death, sex work

After the tragic death of her first child, a baby daughter, Isabelle has run away to another town in Spain to escape the grief, leaving her husband Hector with a double loss. They are a working-class couple. The scene opens with Isabelle expecting a client in a seedy bordello. Hector has found her. He entreats...
Composer: James Rolfe
Librettist: Camyar Chai

Rosa
Rosa
The Waterfall (LIBLAB)
Content warning: death, infanticide, murder

A rumble of hooves. A family is fleeing, but the baby is slowing them down. The mother is forced to choose between her husband and her child. She chooses the husband and tries to get the baby to sleep before letting it go over a waterfall. At the last minute, the baby awakes, and the mother’s grief ...
Composer: Norbert Palej
Librettist: Maja Ardal

The Waterfall (LIBLAB)
The Waterfall (LIBLAB)
Where You Live
A businessman is waiting for a streetcar, with his back to an unhoused woman. The two silently judge each other. The man is annoyed at seeing someone who wants something for nothing, and the woman is feeling judged for a situation she has no control over. The two finally acknowledge each other, and we discover their shared experience.
Composer: Iman Habibi
Librettist: Michael Pollard

Where You Live
Where You Live
Shanawdithit
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...
Composer: Dean Burry
Librettist: Yvette Nolan

Shanawdithit
Blind Woman
A blind dancer and the shadow of her former sight share a final dance.
Composer: James Rolfe
Librettist: David Yee

Blind Woman
Blind Woman
Where is Ava
Chloe and Eddie are in the throes of love when they’re interrupted by Matt, Chloe’s athlete ex-husband. Matt asks where their daughter Ava is, and criticizes Chloe for abandoning Ava for some man.
Composer: Ivan Barbotin
Librettist: Katherine Koller

Where is Ava
Where is Ava
She is Me
Content warning: fire, death

Janna and her grandpa are in Toronto’s distillery district. Before she has to leave, Janna asks him to tell the story of how he and Grandma met. Both were fighting a fire, and met as part of the bucket brigade. Janna proudly reminds him he saved everyone that night, but this isn’t true. Grandpa confesses that a wo...
Composer: Lembit Beecher
Librettist: Katherine Koller

She is Me
Snow Globe
A sister and brother go through the belongings of their recently departed mother and find an old snow globe from their youth. They both really want to keep it. A bitter fight ensues and the sister inadvertently blurts out a very painful secret.
Composer: Ian Cusson
Librettist: Colleen Murphy

Snow Globe
Tea at Three
Late at night, Allie receives a visitation from her deceased best friend, Karen.
Composer: Katya Pine
Librettist: Sheldon Rosen

Tea at Three
Tea at Three
The Handless Maiden: Scene 8 (Wash the Loss)
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...
Composer: Benton Roark
Librettist: Katherine Koller

The Handless Maiden: Scene 8 (Wash the Loss)
The Handless Maiden: Scene 8 (Wash the Loss)
The Golden Boy
The scene is divided into two sections: a tense argument between mother and child, and a tender aria for the mother as she finally reveals a painful truth to her son about the prolonged absence of his father.
Composer: Darren J
Librettist: Anusree Roy

The Golden Boy
The Golden Boy
The Telegram
Content warning: death, war

During a war, two women talk over the phone. They panic as they watch the town elder march down the street, telegram in hand. His message always carries horrible news: the death of someone’s son. Both of the women almost unwillingly hope some other family gets the telegram. Anyone but them.

In truth, the telegra...
Composer: Gareth Williams
Librettist: Bernard MacLaverty

The Telegram
The Telegram
Sky on Swings


We open on an Alzheimer’s hallucination. Martha, a woman in her seventies, sees a surreal and exaggerated world in which strangers torment her and weather invades her kitchen. Martha remains in the grips of her hallucination until the presence of Martha’s daughter, Winnie, rips her out of it. Suddenly, shockingly, Martha i...
Composer: Lembit Beecher
Librettist: Hannah Moscovitch

Sky on Swings
Iron Road
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...
Composer: Ka Nin Chan
Librettist: Mark Brownell

Iron Road
The Last Lullaby
Content warning: war, death, gun violence

A young mother with her infant daughter is threatened by an armed military officer escorting prisoners. She wants to wait for her husband, but the officer tells her he is probably already dead. The woman sings a lament to her baby, then pleads with the officer to take her baby and raise her as his own.
Composer: Jana Skarecky
Librettist: Anusree Roy

The Last Lullaby
The Last Lullaby
Ice Cream
Content warning: illness, memory loss

A mother and son have dinner. The mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and her son has increasing difficulty coping with that fact.
Composer: Benton Roark
Librettist: Liza Balkan

Ice Cream
Ice Cream
Sooner Than Later
Content warning: gun violence, strong language, terminal illness, attempted assisted suicide

A father and son argue in a dark alley.  The father, sick with a tumour "the size of a fig" in his brain, begs his son to end his life.  When the gun they're using fails and the son panics, the father offers comfort and encouragement in the form of a ...
Composer: Cecilia Livingston
Librettist: David Yee

Sooner Than Later
Sooner Than Later
Pomegranate
On a fateful school trip to the ruins of Pompeii, the fantasies of smitten teenagers Suzie and Cass are ignited. They are transported from 1977 to 79 AD, where they discover romantic freedom in the looming shadow of Mount Vesuvius – but not for long. The timeline shifts to 1981 and the Fly by Night, a Toronto lesbian bar, in the aftermath of the...
Composer: Kye Marshall
Librettist: Amanda Hale

Pomegranate
Molly’s Veil
Content warning: illness, death

Charlotte works to prepare a Thanksgiving meal while her sister Margaret, who is ill, rests. When Margaret drops some china, the sisters are forced to confront the fact that Margaret's illness is likely terminal, and they will soon be separated. They sing a heartfelt duet, vowing to say hello to a new closeness...
Composer: Jana Skarecky
Librettist: Sharon Bajer

Molly’s Veil
Farewell Poo
Charlie and Robert stand over a toilet examining Charlie's poo and reflecting on lost loved ones.
Composer: Rene Orth
Librettist: Daniel Solon

Farewell Poo
Farewell Poo
Glimmer
Glimmer attempts to address the urgent matters and seemingly irreconcilable coexisting realities at the core of queer existence through multiple frames and lenses. Taking full advantage of an all-queer cast of performers, with whom the piece was developed organically through a series of discussions and workshops, this work intertwines the autobi...
Composer: Thierry Tidrow
Librettist: Thierry Tidrow

Glimmer
Eva
A son gets caught sleeping with his father's girlfriend, Eva. A three-way fight erupts, the son professing his love for Eva and vice versa, while the father warns they’ll betray each other soon enough. They leave, and the father grieves the loss of them both.
Composer: Stephen Andrew Taylor
Librettist: Anna Chatterton

Eva
Eva
M’dea Undone
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...
Composer: John Harris
Librettist: Marjorie Chan

M’dea Undone
Love Songs
Love Songs is an intimate story about love in five “thematic” movements: pure love, tender love, children’s love, mature love and love for a person who has been lost. The lyrics are sung in five languages: English, French, Serbian, Irish and Latin. There are interludes between the movements in which the phrase “I Love You” is delivered in 100 di...
Composer: Ana Sokolović

Love Songs
Eshna
Elvet is struck with grief over the death of his newborn child, not yet named.
Composer: August Murphy-King
Librettist: Kanika Ambrose

Eshna
Eshna
Dark Star Requiem
Content warning: illness, death, HIV/AIDS

Dark Star Requiem is a poetic chronicle of the 25 years (as of 2010) of HIV-AIDS, reflecting the many faces of the disease and those affected by the pandemic.
Composer: Andrew Staniland
Librettist: Jill Battson

Dark Star Requiem
COR
Excerpts
The Handless Maiden: Scene 8 (Wash the Loss) – Wash the Loss Away

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.

Where is Ava – Where is Ava

Chloe and Eddie are in the throes of love when they’re interrupted by Matt, Chloe’s athlete ex-husband. Matt asks where their daughter Ava is, and criticizes Chloe for abandoning Ava for a man.

The Telegram – The Telegram

Two women watch and worry as the church elder walks through town with a telegram carrying news of a soldier son's death.

Sooner Than Later – Close your eyes, son

A father comforts his son as he encourages him to end his life, rather than waiting for him to die of a terminal illness.

Where You Live – Where You Live

A businessman is waiting for a streetcar, with his back to an unhoused woman. The two silently judge each other. The man is annoyed at seeing someone who wants something for nothing, and the woman is feeling judged for a situation she has no control over. The two finally acknowledge each other, and we discover their shared experience.

Dragon’s Tale – Dragon’s Tale – Scene 5

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.

Snow Globe – Snow Globe

A sister and brother go through the belongings of their recently departed mother and find an old snow globe from their youth. They both really want to keep it. A bitter fight ensues and the sister inadvertently blurts out a very painful secret.

She is Me – She is Me

Janna and her grandpa are in Toronto’s distillery district. Before she has to leave, Janna asks him to tell the story of how he and Grandma met.

Dragon’s Tale – Dragon’s Tale – Scene 9

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.

Dragon’s Tale – Dragon’s Tale – Scene 8

Xiao Lian performs the Qingming ceremony to honour the spirit of her departed father and mother. Love and fellowship combine in the running of a dragon boat race. Xiao Lian joins her friends and crosses into her future.

Dragon’s Tale – Dragon’s Tale – Scene 7

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...

La Maupin – VI. The Last Love

Maupin remembers her romance with the Countess de Florensac.

Pegasus’s Aria

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.

Shanawdithit – Scene 2

Cormack’s study in St. John’s, now Shanawdithit’s room. “Nancy April” reveals she can speak English quite well, and tells Cormack her real name: Shanawdithit. Cormack asks her where the rest of her people are, where her home is. Shanawdithit says simply: they are no more. Shanawdithit reflects on the loss of her people and the taking of her a...

Dragon’s Tale – Dragon’s Tale – Scene 1

A young Chinese/Canadian woman (Xiao Lian) faces a difficult choice: Honour her family’s traditional past or embrace a more modern future. Her father dwells on the memory of his deceased wife and honours her by performing the Qingming funeral tradition. Meanwhile, Xiao Lian’s two friends want her to get out and be more social. Her ...

Dragon’s Tale – Dragon’s Tale – Scene 6

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...

Dragon’s Tale – Dragon’s Tale – Scene 2

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...

M’dea Undone – Act 2, Scene 11: The Beach

Pursued by Jason and the guards, M'dea and Chase climb a cliff by the ocean. When they reach the top, they play a version of their make-believe game, and jump off.

Blind Woman – The Blind Woman

A blind dancer and the shadow of her former sight share a final dance.

Eshna – Eshna

Elvet is struck with grief over the death of his newborn child, not yet named.

Eva – Eva

A son gets caught sleeping with his father's girlfriend, Eva. A three-way fight erupts, the son professing his love for Eva and vice versa, while the father warns they’ll betray each other soon enough. They leave, and the father grieves the loss of them both.

Farewell Poo – Farewell Poo

Robert helps Charlie, who is sick, check his stool and be calm in the face of death.

Ice Cream – Ice Cream

A mother and son have dinner. The mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and her son has increasing difficulty coping with that fact.

Iron Road – Manli’s Aria

Filled with regret over his life, Manli sings of an abandoned love.

Iron Road – “Cool Mountain Water” in Bb (aria)

Lai Gwan compares her love for Nichol with the pull of the cool mountain water.

Iron Road – “Cool Mountain Water” in C (aria)

Lai Gwan compares her love for Nichol with the pull of the cool mountain water.

Iron Road – “Cool Mountain Water” Short Version in Bb (aria)

Lai Gwan compares her love for Nichol with the pull of the cool mountain water.

Iron Road – “Cool Mountain Water” Short Version in C (aria)

Lai Gwan compares her love for Nichol with the pull of the cool mountain water.

Iron Road – Act 2, Scene 1: The Fight

As Manli and Lai Gwan argue about their situation, Lai Gwan tells of Ama's death, which crushes Manli. He decides to set the next explosive charge himself. Nichol and Lai Gwan recognise their love and follow Manli into the tunnel.

Iron Road – Act 2, Scene 2: The Cave

In the explosion rubble, Lai Gwan and Nichol declare their love depsite Ama's warnings. Nichol dies as the workers rescue Lai Gwan and Manli, who declares his renewed love for his daughter.

Iron Road – Act 2, Scene 5: Remember the Dead

Manli and Lai Gwan decided to make a life together in Canada. As they collect and bury the bones of Chinese workers they remember all the dead, including Ama and Nichol.

M’dea Undone – Act 2, Scene 5

M'dea tries once more to get Jason to stay with her, but he believes he will never forget his war crimes if she is in his life. M'dea eventually agrees to go back to her country.

M’dea Undone – Act 2, Scene 8: Killing (aria)

Just before the wedding, Jason discovers Dahlia and the President murdered.

The Golden Boy – The Golden Boy

After a painful argument, a mother tells her son the truth of his father's absence and tries to comfort him.

TAP:EX Metallurgy – Metallurgy A – second movement

A couple is trying to come to terms with the loss of their daughter. They grieve, and fight with one another.

TAP:EX Metallurgy – Metallurgy A – third movement

The couple continues to mourn.

TAP:EX Metallurgy – Metallurgy A – final movement

Duet between the woman and a violin, symbolizing her daughter.

Nigredo Hotel – “Until I was a child…” (aria)

Ray, a jaded neurosurgeon, muses on the loss of his childhood wonder and innocence.

Playing Ball – Playing Ball

Tabitha helps her father Ken, who has had a stroke. She combs his hair and helps him with his therapy ball, retrieving it each time he drops it.

Pub Operas (The Sloans Project) – Mad with It

A young couple celebrates their recent engagement in the Sloans pub, only to be interrupted by a drunk whose 24-year marriage has just ended. The drunk leaves his wedding ring, and, sensing an opportunity, the young couple takes it.

Pub Operas (The Sloans Project) – “I remember the drink we shared” (aria)

An old drunk recounts his failed marriage.

Pub Operas (The Sloans Project) – Country Song

Two men break into their old haunt, bringing their recently deceased friend along for the ride. They pour three pints and pull up a country song on the jukebox. In turn, they reflect on what they’d tell him if he were still alive.

Pub Operas (The Sloans Project) – Charm

A father befriends the man who murdered his daughter but eluded the police, plotting revenge in the process.

Rosa – “Every day I blistered my hands…” (duet)

Hector and Isabelle express their resentment towards each other for the sacrifices they each made.

Sanctuary Song – Scene 2: Capture

James and Sydney start their journey. Sydney remembers being young and playing in the forest with her friend Penny. One day, they are both captured, and the family herd is shot.

Shanawdithit – Scene 4

The taking of Demasduit weighs heavy on Shanawdithit’s heart. Cormack, unsure of what to do, tries to comfort her, saying Demasduit was treated well. Shawnadithit asks if white people actually care about her people, her story, because Cormack’s words are betrayed by the actions of his fellows, and indeed, his own. Cormack insists he will ensu...

Shanawdithit – Scene 5: Salmon, Seal, Caribou

Shanawdithit describes the last days of her family as they were pushed from their land and then hunted. She asks Cormack not to speak of their death, but of their life. Cormack is ecstatic and gets lost in the memories Shanawdithit paints. She breaks his reverie with the cold fact that the life she speaks of will never happen again. She colla...

Shanawdithit – Scene 7

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...

Tea at Three – Tea at Three

Late at night, Allie receives a visitation from her deceased best friend, Karen.

COR

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