New Opera Showcase June 14, 2011

Tapestry announces a New Opera Showcase to culminate the 2010-2011 season

Wayne Strongman, Managing Artistic Director, is pleased to announce that Tapestry New Opera’s 2010/11 season will culminate on June 14 & 15, 2011 with a New Opera Showcase of works in development at Tapestry, a presentation of some of the short works being developed for Opera to Go and excerpts from several full-length operas:

Waterfall
(Maja Ardal, librettist) / Norbert Palej, composer)
Creative match made in the 2010 LibLab
Waterfall is inspired by Icelandic mythology, a rural tale of forbidden love, with a mystic chorus in the title role (The Waterfall). The haunting first instalment of Waterfall, showcased at Tapestry’s Opera Briefs in September, featured a stunning original performance by mezzo-soprano Kimberly Barber, who will return for the June New Opera Showcase. It is the first opera by this team: Dora award-winning theatre artist Maja Ardal and Toronto-based Polish-Canadian composer Norbert Palej.

M'Dea Undone
(Marjorie Chan, librettist / John Harris, composer)
Creative match made in the 2009 LibLab.
A contemporary creation inspired by the Greek classic, this mainstage work by award-winning playwright and actor Marjorie Chan – Tapestry’s Writer in Residence, and Edinburgh-based English composer John Harris is being developed in partnership with Scottish Opera. Scottish Opera’s Alex Reedjik describes the companies’ similar taste, style and pedagogy which facilitate “a truly creative and symbiotic partnership – all heading toward the building of opera muscles for new / young composers and writers. AND most importantly with public performances at the end of it all which is really the point of opera writing. I think that given we live in hugely modern times, it’s terrific that we can share in this close cultural collaboration with emerging artists from both countries leading to work that is so much more than the sum of the parts.”

“Scenes from an Old Glasgow Pub”
(David Brock, librettist / Gareth Williams, composer)
Creative match made in the 2010 LibLab
A presentation of the developing Sloans Project from Noise Opera, new opera vignettes based on real-life love stories in Glasgow's historic Sloans Bar and Restaurant, to be produced in July for the 2011 Merchant City Festival. Noise Opera calls the Sloans Project “an innovative example of music theatre which fuses the line between audience as spectator and participant.“ Glasgow-based Irish composer Gareth Williams has participated twice in Tapestry’s Composer-Librettist Laboratory (LibLab), describing the Tapestry experience as “the best working environment that I've ever come across - I felt safe and felt that I could make the music I believed in making - and it's very rare to encounter an ethos like that.” He and Toronto-based librettist David Brock have chosen to return to Tapestry to workshop Scenes from an Old Glasgow Pub, prior to their world premiere in Scotland as the Sloans Project.

Ruth
(Michael Lewis MacLennan, librettist / Jeffrey Ryan, composer)
Creative team behind The Laurels, part of Opera to Go 2002 and 2010
The history of Canada is made up of countless immigrant stories. The challenge of leaving home, adapting to a new land and customs, and raising a family under trying circumstances runs through our collective memories. In this new opera for soloists and choir, playwright-screenwriter-producer Michael Lewis MacLennan and Juno-nominated composer Jeffrey Ryan take the basic story from the smallest book in the Old Testament and apply the “moral” to contemporary Canadian society and our immigrant experiences: “For your people shall be my people.”

“We are very excited about these new works in development. The teams represented are some of the finest creators from both sides of ‘the pond’. Working with their experience and maturity, and with our Scottish Opera colleagues, has been exhilarating for the performers as well as the staff, and it is time now to share this progression with our audience. We think you will be ‘wowed’!”
Wayne Strongman, Managing Artistic Director

The 2010-2011 season firmly establishes Tapestry as an international home to new opera for creators, developers and performers, all collaborators in telling stories that need to be told. This season is presented in the intimacy of Tapestry’s home, the Ernest Balmer Studio, in the Distillery Historic District.

Box Office
416.537.6066 / tapestrynewopera.com

Director/Dramaturge: Tom Diamond
Music Director/Dramaturge: Wayne Strongman

Singers:
Neema Bickersteth, soprano
Xin Wang, soprano
Kimberly Barber, mezzo-soprano
Heather Jewson, mezzo-soprano
Keith Klassen, tenor
Christopher Mayell, tenor
Peter McGillivray, baritone
Curtis Sullivan, baritone

ABOUT THE COMPANY
Tapestry New Opera is an international home for new work creation, development and performance through its unique and highly collaborative work process. Under the leadership of Managing Artistic Director Wayne Strongman, CM, Tapestry engages the hearts and minds of artists and audiences, using opera to tell the stories that need to be told. The Tapestry process begins at the annual Composer-Librettist Laboratory where writers and composers are introduced to collaborative creation. Successful partnerships move on to create 15-minute operas for our regular Opera to Go productions and graduate to full-length works. Our INside Opera Education Programme gives students the chance to discover their own stories and engage in the creation of new opera. Our children’s operas, Elijah’s Kite by Camyar Chai & James Rolfe and Get Stuffed by Alexis Diamond and Richard Payne have already toured to over 30,000 students across Ontario. Tapestry productions which have premiered to critical and popular acclaim include Dark Star Requiem by Jill Battson & Andrew Staniland (with the Gryphon Trio and Elmer Iseler Singers) and the Dora-Award winning Sanctuary Song by Abigail Richardson & Marjorie Chan (with Theatre Direct), both for Luminato, The Shadow by Alex Poch-Goldin & Omar Daniel, Nigredo Hotel by Ann-Marie MacDonald & Nic Gotham, Elsewhereless by Atom Egoyan & Rodney Sharman, Still the Night by Theresa Tova, Facing South by Don Hannah & Linda C. Smith and the Dora Award-winning Iron Road by composer Chan Ka Nin & librettist Mark Brownell.

We have simplified our name to Tapestry New Opera. Please refer to our domain name www.tapestrynewopera.com in case of confusion.

2010-2011 SEASON AT A GLANCE
Tapestry is in a development season. Tickets are available for all events in the Ernest Balmer Studio. February – June 2011 will feature workshop performances of the new operas in development at Tapestry.

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For further media information and artist interviews please contact Kim Blackwell at
416-346-4709, 416-686-0982 or blackwellcommunications@gmail.com