Nighttime on a dock on a lake. Tea lights have been carefully arranged on the side of the dock to illuminate a path. Adele stands at the end of a dock holding an urn that contains her husband’s ashes. She takes the lid off the urn, and begins to sprinkle ashes on the water.
The interior of a thumping, vibrating gay nightclub with obligatory disco ball and coloured strobe lights. A middle-aged gentleman is sitting at the bar, back to the audience, lost in his thoughts and seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. The truth is he isn't used to going to clubs, or hasn't since th...
In a shack surrounded by barren fields, a dying father and his son drink their last bowl of water. They need oil for the machines that will keep them alive and purify their water. A truck rolls past with a huge barrel of oil in the back. The son flags it down, only to discover the person driving the truck is a monstrous c...
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.
Facing South is inspired by the life story of American Arctic explorer, Rear Admiral Robert Edwin Peary, and his contested discovery of the North Pole in 1909. The opera takes place in the inner landscape of Peary’s mind during the last hours of his life in February 1920, as he lies dying of pernic...
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...
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...
Content warning: death, murder, mention of child sexual abuse
Lisa is a twelve-year-old student at an all-girls school, where she is best friends with Annie and Caroline. Together they form a group called the Teacher's Angels, made up of girls who score perfect on their tests.
When Lisa scores a nine out of ten on a math test, she is kicke...
A young child wakes up alone on the beach. They call for their mother. The sound of the waves muffles the voices of people who worry about newcomers and the effect that they will have on their society. Other voices take over - other children declaring that the child belongs with them now.
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...
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...
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 ...
Just below the summit of Mount Everest on the south summit ridge, Jackie and her partner Pasang are celebrating that she is the first woman to reach the summit without oxygen. Then something changes. Could it be Mother Everest punishing the climbers?
Partition in 1947 drives Naila’s family to the new country of Pakistan while her best friend Lolo must remain in India. In a child’s-eye view of this world event, the significant concerns for these two nine-year-olds are custody of a tin box with important valuables (“marbles and flowers and keys and rings”), and the care and feeding of a pet ra...
Content warning: captivity, sex trafficking, sex work, sexual violence, violence, death
The Enslavement and Liberation of Oksana G. is a fictional dramatic opera built on extensive factual research. Set in Ukraine in 1997, it is the story of Oksana, a young woman lured into the world of sex trafficking by a Russian recruiter, Konstantin, who ...
In a country torn by war, a woman works as a bell-ringer. There used to be many more in the tower, but one by one the bells were taken: metal for the war-machine. A man climbs the tower after hearing her play the one remaining bell. What seems at first a meeting of two lovers turns dark as the man tries to claim the bell. They need the metal for...
Rocking Horse Winner primarily explores the relationship between Paul, a young adult, and his emotionally distant mother, Ava.
Paul is driven to bridge the relationship with his mother, but Ava sees Paul’s attempts to engage as fussy and considers motherhood an obligation. She remains distant, trapped in a m...
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...
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...
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...
Content warning: antisemitism, genocide, Holocaust, infanticide, murder, Nazis, sexual violence, sex work, violence, war
Still the Night tells the fictional story of two Jewish Polish cousins, both named Bryna, who have escaped from the Nazis and joined the Partisans. Along the way they are hung on crosses, raped, almost shot and forced to tu...
Content warning: child sexual abuse, incest, death, murder
Judith and Daniel, long estranged siblings, are brought together by the passing of their father. Time has passed, but it seems like Judith hasn't changed at all. Daniel kills his sister when she wants to resume their childhood sexual relationship.
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.
A translator at a secret prison for suspected terrorists witnesses extreme torture and death of detainees. She leaks the information to news broadcasters, but the government covers it up as a hoax. Her supervisor begs her to say nothing more about the things she has seen -...
Two sisters are outside by the river talking. One sister describes the boy she hopes to be with, and the other sister admits that she is pregnant with his baby. Jealousy is a deadly emotion.
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, ...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
"Drawn from an Irish saga of the Red Branch Knights of Ulster in the druidic era, the story tells of the doom of the ruthless Conochar, King of Ullah (Ulster), and the tragic death of Naisi and his brothers, the Princes of Ullah, as a result of the rivalry between Conochar and Naisi for the love of the foundling Deirdre."
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.
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...
A multicultural retelling of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.
"The jealous king Leontes’ wife, Hermione, is accused of committing adultery with his best friend, Polixenes, and Hermione is jailed. Soon after, Leontes and Hermione’s young son dies before she gives birth to a daughter Perdita who is smuggled out of the country after Hermione’s s...
In the park of a small town in the Crowsnest Pass, family and friends celebrate the wedding of Filumena Costanzo to Charlie Lassandro. As festivities proceed, Filumena seems withdrawn, stunned by her new husband’s brusqueness. Charlie has given her a new “Canadian” name, Florence, which she clearly rejects. ...
Ours tracks the social, political, and emotional aftermath of the battle of Beaumont Hamel through the story of Thomas Nangle, who was chaplain to the Newfoundland Regiment.
Following the war, Nangle was named to the Imperial War Graves Commission where he led efforts to properly bury the remains of the lost Regiment across Europe. He establi...
A nighttime confrontation between a mother and son. The son accuses her of having an affair with his uncle, and killing his father. He’s found a doctor in Chinatown who will be able to prove his father was poisoned. The mother claims she did it to end his pain.
The interior of a thumping, vibrating gay nightclub. A middle-aged gentleman sips his drink and turns to watch the dancers on the dance floor. Under the disco ball a young man, stripped to the waist, is dancing with abandon. The young man approaches and establishes immediate physical contact, which is uncomfortable. The older man needs more pers...
A dying father and his son drink their last bowl of water. They need oil for the machines that will keep them alive and purify their water. A truck rolls past with a huge barrel of oil in the back. The son flags it down, only to discover the person driving the truck is a monstrous creature from the nation they’re at war with.
Aboard a ship taking Chinese workers to British Columbia - they are hungry & thirsty. Ah Lum starts a fight with Lai Gwan, who is disguised as a young man, but they stop as the coast comes into view.
In Ottawa, Canadian politicians and moguls toast the launch of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The Railway Foreman James Nichol encourages the workers until the impenetrable Rocky Mountains block their way. The Bookman comes to supply the cheap Chinese labour that will allow Nichol to conquer “The Great Divide.”
The Chinese workers are led in and a disguised Lai Gwan challenges Manli the Bookman’s authority. He seeks revenge by assigning Lai Gwan to the most dangerous work in the camp: planting dynamite on the mountain face while suspended in a basket.
While she is bathing in a stream, Nichol disovers Lai Gwan is a woman - she asks for his help to find her father and to keep her secret. Manli interrupts them before Nichol decides what to do.
The Chinese workers decide to strike, led by Lai Gwan, after another death with no proper funeral. The strike is put down and Nichol stops Lai Gwan from being hung by Manli. She discovers Manli is her father.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lisa is devastated to get 9 out of 10 on her math test. She insists that she answered the question correctly, and pleads with Mr. Herwin to change her grade. Mr. Herwin says that her "45" looked like a "43", and that everyone makes mistakes.
"A perfect score is all that counts." Lisa fixates on the consequences of her test and predicts that Annie and Caroline will banish her from "the circle of three" because of her imperfect score. She blames Mr. Herwin.
The President invites Jason to be his running mate, and begins to remake him. This process sidelines M'dea and Chase. Dahlia and Jason are attracted to one other.