COR
Operas
Content warning: child neglect, death, migration, strong language, trauma, war
When Sophia’s mother dies, Sophia confronts half-forgotten traumas from her childhood. Sophia and her sister Emma grew up in a war torn country. The two young girls cope with and escape their grim circumstances – the adult world of war, death and displacement – thr...
When Sophia’s mother dies, Sophia confronts half-forgotten traumas from her childhood. Sophia and her sister Emma grew up in a war torn country. The two young girls cope with and escape their grim circumstances – the adult world of war, death and displacement – thr...
Composer: Lembit Beecher
Librettist: Hannah Moscovitch
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
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: 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
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
"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: 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
Content warning: PTSD, violence, war
I Have No Stories to Tell You mines the aftereffects of war through the story of a soldier’s return home from an extended assignment on the battlefield. Written as a companion piece to Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, the opera explores war as a catalyst for changed identity through th...
I Have No Stories to Tell You mines the aftereffects of war through the story of a soldier’s return home from an extended assignment on the battlefield. Written as a companion piece to Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, the opera explores war as a catalyst for changed identity through th...
Composer: Lembit Beecher
Librettist: Hannah Moscovitch
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
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.
Sorrel sings to her sleeping husband Daniel, telling him about the traumatic experiences she feels she cannot share when he is awake.
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.
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.
The pilot watches Hope from afar. They meet and become lovers.
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.
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.
In a dream state, M'dea recalls all she has done to survive.
M'dea and Jason commit to loving each other and helping each other recover from the war and memories that haunt them.
At a party, the Corporal mocks Jason for needing M'dea to help him win and for bringing her home.
Jason, M'dea, and the soldiers return from war to a celebratory crowd. Some do not trust the new foreigner, M'dea.
As the Democratic Republic of Congo fights for its independence, patients are being hospitalized and dying from AIDS-related illness.
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.
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