Proving Up, based on a story by Karen Russell, is an opera about the American Dream, told through the story of Nebrasken homesteaders in the 1870s. A family dreams of "proving up" and obtaining the deed to the land they've settled. They obsessively list the requirements of the Homestead Act: five years of harvest, a sod house dwelling, and perha...

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...

Content warning: death, injury, paralysis, sexual violence, suicide attempt, violence

Based on the film by Lars von Trier, Breaking the Waves tells the story of Bess McNeill, a religious young woman with a deep love for her husband Jan, a handsome oil rig worker in 1970's Scotland. When Jan becomes paralyzed in an off-shore accident, Bess’s m...

The Mummer’s Masque is a contemporary interpretation of various mummering traditions incorporating dance, music, drama, stage combat and puppetry.  With a new libretto fashioned from various historic sources, the music is a blend of contemporary opera and traditional folk styles.  It is also the only known example of a classical solo for the New...

Avertissement de contenu : mort, meurtre, violence

This opera explores the interior realm of a woman’s response to a crisis. The Laurels plays with audience assumptions and expectations; it is well into the piece before we realize the stranger is not the person he appears to be. While it is important that Laurel’s understanding of the Stranger is consi...

Trois jeunes archéologues, perdus dans le désert égyptien, se penchent sur le mythe antique d'Isis pour tenter de sauver leur professeur mourant. Plongés au cœur d'une lutte épique d'un passé lointain, ils découvrent le pouvoir guérisseur de la sagesse ancestrale.

Cet opéra pour enfants combine trois contes de fées recueillis par les frères Grimm : Rapunzel, Le Petit Chaperon rouge et Rumpelstiltskin, le tout tissé avec des éléments de l'histoire vraie des frères.

Content warning: execution, incest, murder, sexual assault, slavery, torture, violence

Beatrice Chancy is a historical drama based upon the true story of the Cenci family of Rome, circa 1600. The story is set on a plantation in Nova Scotia during the last days of slavery, circa 1800, with the heroine Beatrice as the half-caste daughter of her...

Avertissement de contenu : racisme, colonialisme, violence, mort

En Chine dans les années 1880, Lai Gwan, une jeune femme appauvrie, est à l'aube d'un énorme changement. Sa mère mourante la presse de respecter et d'honorer la mémoire de son père, Manli, dont la disparition au Nouveau Monde les hante tous les deux.

Armed with the hope that she will find her father aliv...

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...

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.