(from left to right: Adam Scime – double bass, Darren Creech – piano, Joseph Glaser – Composer, Jonathan MacArthur – Voice)
Written by Michael Zarathus-Cook
Be it “Verdi’s Otello” or “Wainwright’s Hadrian”, a top-down creative process has been the almost unanimous method responsible for most compositions in the operatic repertoire. This despite being an art-form that results from the myriad collaboration of artists, musicians and directors with often unique aesthetic fingerprints. It was in the spirit of spotlighting the collaborative processes inherent in opera that FAWN Chamber Creative’s newest project, an opera-ballet called Pandora, was developed. At the latest phase of a process that began three years ago, stage director Amanda Smith, librettist David James Brock and three composers from across Canada began the final stretch of rehearsals on May 1st for the production’s premieres later this month.
If there was one name that could be billed above the title, it would be the librettist’s as his contributions to the opera-ballet was the through-line connecting three initially disparate compositions. Composers David Storen, Joseph Glaser and Kit Soden were selected out of six composers—chosen via an open call— by a diverse audience at a FAWN production (Synesthesia IV) in May 2016, followed by their devised-opera workshop in February 2017 and with the music of the resulting operas workshopped in the summer of 2018. Brock thereon was tasked with the challenge of stitching these compositions together, and around choreography by Jennifer Nichols, to form a full-length opera-ballet.
In an interview for this month’s issue of The Wholenote Magazine, Brock exemplifies his focus on collaboration by asking “What stories are we telling? Who is telling them? And how can something as labour-intensive as opera be developed and performed in a way that maybe opens things up a bit?”—recalling that the composers were chosen by a random audience, there is no doubt of the extent which FAWN is committed to bringing more creative visions under the operatic umbrella. And not just creatives, but other art-forms as well. Pandora is among the ongoing trend in Canadian opera productions that incorporate performances by dancers. The two operas mentioned in the opening sentence, for example, are both productions in the Canadian Opera Company’s current season utilizing the extra dimension of dancers to reinvent a well-established production. Smith (also founder of FAWN) has worked alongside Nichols since the beginning of the devised theatre method to showcase dance elements in a production that is already multifaceted with its incorporation of electronic music.
The incorporation of dancers is especially relevant to FAWN’s mandate of “bringing new opera and new multi-disciplinary works to the stage”. Not only does this diversify the types of cooks in the kitchen, but it also diversifies the demographic of audience members. The opera-enthusiast who voted for one of the composers that features in Pandora almost three years ago might find herself sitting, this time around, next to a ballet-enthusiast who rarely makes it out to the independent opera scene. Then there’s the very likely demographic of first-timers to ballet and opera intrigued by the flexibility of interpretation and diversity of experience that a mixed-medium production encourages.
This last point is perhaps the most important in regards to what is unique about Pandora’s creative process: a new approach to creating operas might just be what’s needed to bring in new audiences and perspectives to Toronto’s burgeoning indie-opera scene.
Aside from the creative process, there’s also the production itself. As the title suggests, it is centered around a female character famous for taking the blame for the quantity of evil she released into the world; this production takes up that same idea but with the angle of dispersing some of that blame to another character and reinventing her as a source of hope despite despair.
“What’s in the box?!!” Brad Pitt will forever be famous for saying in the movie Se7en, FAWN’s Pandora has a new take on that question. It premieres on May 23, come find out.
Pandora – a new opera-ballet
May 23, 24 and 25 at 8 pm
$35 art worker & 30 or under / $45 regular
Geary Lane, 360 Geary Ave, Toronto