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Composer: Luna Pearl Woolf
Librettist: Royce Vavrek
Premiere Information: February 19, 2020 at the Betty Oliphant Theatre
Producer: Tapestry Opera
Commissioned By: Tapestry Opera
Run Time: 1hr, 47min with one intermission

SYNOPSIS

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tincidunt, vitae tempus lacus scelerisque.

MUSIC DESCRIPTION

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SCENE BREAKDOWN

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Praesent porta nibh eget commodo ultrices. Vestibulum vitae erat imperdiet, tincidunt sem non, tempus dui. Cras vitae tellus et odio dapibus malesuada a in ipsum. Aenean ut erat a est fermentum dapibus id non nisi. Donec ante dolor, elementum eu tempor sit amet, lacinia id ipsum. Praesent porttitor mauris mi, eu aliquam sem commodo a. Praesent augue leo, condimentum non consectetur non, vulputate vel mi. Aenean sit amet ligula purus. Nam in nibh turpis. Vivamus id quam in orci porttitor sodales sed in est. Pellentesque efficitur tempus bibendum. Pellentesque fringilla dui consequat, congue est vitae, dictum felis. Proin turpis justo, auctor a maximus at, rutrum et libero. Duis quis dui accumsan, euismod mauris eget, euismod lorem. Nullam ullamcorper rhoncus rhoncus. Vivamus sem dui, laoreet sed elit vel, vulputate mattis nisi. Pellentesque lacus augue, efficitur ac pulvinar a, venenatis non risus. Mauris euismod orci ac nisl venenatis, sit amet vehicula orci sollicitudin. Vestibulum vel dictum eros. Sed ut aliquet dolor. Maecenas porttitor sapien quis ex suscipit sollicitudin. Nulla non elit a eros laoreet semper. Sed dapibus lorem sit amet risus tincidunt, vitae tempus lacus scelerisque.

Premiere Production: February 19, 2020 at the Betty Oliphant Theatre
Producers: Tapestry Opera Premiere
Cast:
Jacqueline: Marnie Breckenridge
Cello: Matt Haimovitz
Premiere Production Team: 
Dramaturgy and Direction: Hidetoshi Mori
Design: Camellia Koo

DIRECTORS NOTE

“Playing lifts you out of yourself into a delirious place.”
Not merely remarkable or great, definitely exceptional, absolutely extraordinary. Jacqueline was extraordinary and from the age of 15 quickly became the greatest cellist in the world, her star burning brightly and tragically briefly when multiple sclerosis entered her life and she was forced to retire from playing at 28. Unlike many biographies, her true story is one that was operatic in nature, dramatic at many stages, and tragic in the end.
Our journey with this opera is to explore the heart and mind of Jacqueline as her identity is put into question. In interpreting Jacqueline, we endeavour to understand and explore rather than to imitate someone who was one-of-a-generation.
“The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who we are in order to become all that we can be.”
Do any of us have a crystal clear calling, a identifying thing that is inseparable from who we are? Jacqueline was music and her cello was music incarnate. When you are a cellist from the age of 5 and begin touring the world before coming of age, you are the cellist.
In capturing Jacqueline we have combined the human and musical in soprano Marnie Breckenridge playing Jacqueline and cellist Matt Haimovitz playing the role of Jacqueline’s cello. Throughout the development of the piece, we weren’t sure if the cello would be an accompanist or perhaps play Daniel Barenboim her husband, or for that matter it could have been a myriad of roles related to Jacqueline. However, allowing both Marnie and Matt to play core and initially fused aspects of her, we also have a relationship that in this particular story, ends in those parts being separated. It is beautiful in a way, Marnie without Matt could not play Jacqueline, Matt without Marnie could not play Jacqueline, yet together they combine to realize something of her essence, life and struggle and in separating, her tragedy.
Jacqueline was disconnected from her mother and family after her rise to fame and public conversion to Judaism, she was left behind following her MS diagnosis as her husband Daniel Barenboim toured the world to launch an illustrious career as pianist and conductor and secretly started a second family in France, she was abandoned by her classical music world once she could no longer play… all of this shows a woman whose only lifelong companion was her cello and her innate, if silenced musicality. This opera shows a little bit of these two friends’ conversation.

– Michael Hidetoshi Mori
Director and dramaturge