COR
Operas
Content warning: birth
A nuclear family adrift in the atomic age. Since Prometheus stole fire from the gods, we have flirted with the dangerous beauty of science. In this cartoon fable, a father protects his family at any cost.
Thomas and Claire fall madly in love at a fundraising party. Thomas has decided to “find a wife, get a life,” whi...
A nuclear family adrift in the atomic age. Since Prometheus stole fire from the gods, we have flirted with the dangerous beauty of science. In this cartoon fable, a father protects his family at any cost.
Thomas and Claire fall madly in love at a fundraising party. Thomas has decided to “find a wife, get a life,” whi...
Composer: Juliet Palmer
Librettist: Julie Salverson
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.
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
"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."
- Carl Morey, The Ca...
- Carl Morey, The Ca...
Composer: Healey Willan
Librettist: John Coulter
Content warning: death, incarceration, interrogation, suicide, torture
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 -...
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 -...
Composer: David Ogborn
Librettist: Leanna Brodie
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...
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
Content warning: war, the Holocaust, concentration camp
As soldiers march outside their room in Terezin, a teacher tries their best to inspire a student, despite the horrid conditions. The student is unable to escape into her imagination.
As soldiers march outside their room in Terezin, a teacher tries their best to inspire a student, despite the horrid conditions. The student is unable to escape into her imagination.
Composer: Christiaan Venter
Librettist: Sheldon Rosen
Content warning: war
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...
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...
Composer: Christiaan Venter
Librettist: Norman Yeung
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...
Composer: Stephen Andrew Taylor
Librettist: Marjorie Chan
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
COR
Excerpts
A teacher tries to inspire and distract a student as soldiers march outside their classroom, but the student is unable to escape into her imagination.
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.
As the Democratic Republic of Congo fights for its independence, patients are being hospitalized and dying from AIDS-related illness.
2003: After leaking torture photos to the internet, American army translator Alessandra Jenson refuses to be hushed up, and live streams her suicide in protest.
Colonel Crane, Alessandra's supervisor, tersely tells her to lose what her perceives as her naive sense of morality: "We are just here to win."
Traumatized by her experiences, Alessandra reflects on her work as a translator in an American military prison.
Two women watch and worry as the church elder walks through town with a telegram carrying news of a soldier son's death.
Jason, M'dea, and the soldiers return from war to a celebratory crowd. Some do not trust the new foreigner, M'dea.
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.
At a party, the Corporal mocks Jason for needing M'dea to help him win and for bringing her home.
Thomas has brought Lise to become Hope's tutor, but Hope has grown up and wants to leave the house. Lise warns her not to give her love away to just anyone.
The pilot watches Hope from afar. They meet and become lovers.
M'dea and Jason commit to loving each other and helping each other recover from the war and memories that haunt them.
A woman makes an appeal that the metal of her bell shouldn't be used for a war machine.
A man coerces a woman to have sex with him in exchange for saving the one remaining temple bell from being melted down for the war metal supply.
In a dream state, M'dea recalls all she has done to survive.
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