Stage Door News
Stage Door News
TORONTO, ON… Wayne Strongman, Artistic Director & CEO, is pleased to announce that on June 11 & 12, 2012 Tapestry New Opera will be holding the first public showcase of Act II of The Enslavement and Liberation of Oksana G., in advance of its world premiere in a future season. After a thrilling workshop presentation of Act I of Oksana G. last winter, this workshop is the next stage in the development of this electrifying new opera by the Governor General’s Award-winning playwright, Colleen Murphy and SOCAN Award-winning composer, Aaron Gervais.
Oksana, a young girl in Sarata, Ukraine, is lured into the world of sex trafficking by Konstantin, a Russian recruiter, who unexpectedly falls in love with her. Oksana escapes his grip and finds her way to a refugee shelter in Brindisi, Italy, run by Father Alexander, a Canadian priest. Recovering from her ordeal, she finds herself drawn to the priest. Meanwhile, Konstantin waits for his chance to pounce. This dangerous ménage à trois appears destined to end in tragedy.
Tapestry commissioned the full length opera after the audience was riveted by a 15-minute scene from Oksana, produced at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts as part of Tapestry’s Opera to Go 2006. By the 2009-10 season, Tapestry were ready to workshop the dramatic and musically complex human auction scene at the Banff Centre for the Arts and subsequently in Toronto, with the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble and full Orchestra. This development work was made possible through a grant from Opera.ca’s Creative Connections.
Oksana G. will be a two-act opera vérité with prologue and epilogue, featuring twelve singing roles (five principals) supported by large chorus and orchestra. The libretto is written in a vérité style, which provides the composer with an opportunity to explore approaches that fall outside of the traditional opera format. In addition, non-operatic music from various cultures is used to enhance the composed score and drama. To meet the needs of today’s audience, the global perspective of Oksana will be reflected through musical quotations and stylistic collage in the music, including multi-media, creating an innovative, engrossing, and topical production, while building upon a story that is, in its essence, purely operatic. The tragic ménage à trois is a topic as ancient as Greek drama, but in Oksana G. it takes on a life as immediate as today’s headlines, yet honours the ingredients common to all great operas: universality, timelessness and high emotion.
For Tapestry’s Artistic Director & CEO, Wayne Strongman the poignancy of this story, and the truth behind it, will allow its audience to brave some harrowing moments, “CBC Newsworld recently broadcast the Emmy Award–winning investigative documentary Sex Slaves, and it was horrifying to realize how rampant and close to home human trafficking is in the 21st century. Consequently, the subject matter of Oksana G., although incredibly disturbing, is nonetheless, timely. And opera, because of its high emotional plane as an entry point, seems a logical art form to absorb such a story.”
TICKETS
$25
Box Office
www.tapestrynewopera.com
(416) 537-6066 ext. 243
Oksana G. PERFORMANCE DETAILS:
Director: Tom Diamond
Music Director: Wayne Strongman
Assistant Director: Michael Mori
Repetiteurs: James Bourne & Greg Oh
Stage Manager: Isolde Pleasants-Faulkner
Studio Lighting Technician: David DeGrow
Sofiya Krisztina Szabo
Aza Marion Newman
Pavlo Chris Mayell
Konstantin Keith Klassen
Father Alexander Chris Enns
Oksana Claire de Sevigny
Yuri Curtis Sullivan
Lyuba Andrea Ludwig
Clara Maria Soulis
Dima Jesse Clark
June 11 & 12, 2012 at 8pm
The Ernest Balmer Studio at Tapestry
9 Trinity Lane, Studio 315, Distillery Historic District
Toronto, Ontario, M5A 3C4
Photo: Pamela Mala Sinha in poster for Crash.
2012-06-09
Toronto: Tapestry announces a workshop production of “The Enslavement and Liberation of Oksana G.”