Tapestry Opera

Author: clay

  • Shanawdithit and Jacqueline receive 13 nominations for the 2020 Dora Awards

    Shanawdithit and Jacqueline receive 13 nominations for the 2020 Dora Awards

    Congratulations to the cast and creative teams of Shanawdithit and Jacqueline, which have been nominated for a total 13 Dora Mavor Moore Awards across every opera category, including both receiving nominations for Outstanding New Opera and Outstanding Production!

    Shanawdithit, May 2019

    Outstanding Ensemble – Aria Evans, Evan Korbut, Deantha Edmunds, Asitha Tennekoon, Rebecca Cuddy, Clarence Frazer, Marion Newman

    Outstanding Musical Direction – Rosemary Thomson
    Outstanding Design: Scenic – Camellia Koo, Jordan Bennett, Meagan Musseau, Lori Blondeau, Jerry Evans

    Outstanding Design: Projection – Cameron Davis

    Outstanding Direction – Yvette Nolan, Michael Mori

    Outstanding New Opera – Yvette Nolan, Dean Burry

    Outstanding Performance by an Individual – Marion Newman

    Outstanding Production (Opera) – Co-production and co-commission with Opera on the Avalon

    Jacqueline, February 2020

    Outstanding Performance by an Individual –  Marnie Breckenridge

    Outstanding Performance by an Individual – Matt Haimovitz

    Outstanding New Opera – Royce Vavrek, Luna Pearl Woolf

    Outstanding Design: Scenic – Camellia Koo 

    Outstanding Production (Opera)

  • Tapestry Opera’s Commitment to Action

    Tapestry Opera stands in solidarity with Black and Indigenous communities in Toronto and across the globe in the fight for justice.

    We acknowledge that there is no such thing as neutrality in discussions of oppression: there is only the choice to do something, or to do nothing. Inaction and willful ignorance are the props that hold up structures of racism that disenfranchise, diminish, and harm people of colour, particularly Black and Indigenous people. 

    Tapestry exists in the context of the performing arts sector in Canada, and the opera sector more broadly. We are storytellers, and what stories are told and who tells them matters. As a progressive cultural institution, we recognize the role that our artistic and organizational practices have in critiquing and dismantling systems of inequity and oppression. 

    While words are important, they are only the first step, and we commit to the following actions:

    Artistic:

    • We will curate our programming with a diversity of creative teams, perspectives, and artists
    • We will consciously engage in anti-oppression conversations around the work that we create and produce
    • We will thoughtfully engage in work about race, in partnership with leaders from those communities

    Advocacy: 

    • We are conscious of our platform and visibility in the industry, and we commit to using it to advocate for increasing equity throughout the sector
    • We will amplify the work and voices of people of colour and other underrepresented communities

    Organizational:

    • We commit to being open to criticism and being held accountable with earnestness and openness to improvement. 
    • We will prioritize equity at all levels: creative teams, staff, board, and artists
    • From our white staff members: 
      • We acknowledge that we benefit from racism. 
      • We commit to educating ourselves and our networks, and to speaking up against racism wherever we encounter it. 
      • We commit to be proactive and vocal, questioning processes and policies in our personal and business lives.
      • We are not afraid of being uncomfortable. We commit to this journey and the inevitable missteps, and to coming back and doing better the next time. 

    For non-Black folks and people who are newly engaged in the discussion, here are some resources to get engaged at a local level:

    We stand in solidarity. We stand in hope of a better, richer, fairer future, and we will work to make it real. 

  • Tapestry Opera innovates a 20/21 season that is immune to cancellation

    Tapestry Opera innovates a 20/21 season that is immune to cancellation

    Flexible digital season includes five Canadian operas in development and a FREE in-person world premiere in summer 2021

    TORONTO – Facing the ongoing crisis of COVID-19 with a spirit of innovation and flexibility, Tapestry Opera announces a 2020/2021 season of innovative opera and music “immune to cancellation”, designed to withstand the uncertainty of the times ahead. The season will premiere new digital commissions, feature monthly livestreamed performances, invest in development with five commissions by leading theatre and musical creators, and culminate in a FREE, in-person world premiere in June 2021. 

    Innovative Digital Programming

    • A broadcast premiere of the recently digitally-rehearsed Rocking Horse Winner, originally slated for live performance in April 2020
    • Monthly livestreamed concerts from Tapestry’s Ernest Balmer Studio in partnership with Yamaha Music Canada
    • Newly commissioned works for online video channels
    • Recording and broadcasting of Tapestry’s contemporary repertoire

    “Considering the uncertain future of live audiences in a pre-vaccine Canada, we made the difficult but ultimately exciting decision to create a season that is immune to cancellation,” says Michael Mori, Tapestry’s General and Artistic Director. “It is very important to us to safely employ artists, no matter the restriction level. If it becomes safe again for audiences to gather before June 2021, we have the flexibility to add live audiences to our concert series – and even to add a full production to our season!”

    “Tapestry has always been a home for opera that is deeply connected to the issues of our modern era,” continues Mori. “During this uncertain time, the company will continue to do what it is known for, as we innovate new ways to reach audiences and tell the stories that resonate with us all.”

    New Operas in Development

    This season shows a remarkable commitment to Canadian opera with five commissions in development, partnering with Canadian and international co-producers. Theatre artists and librettists include Hannah Moscovitch, Nicolas Billon, Liza Balkan, Kanika Ambrose, and Mark Brownell. Music artists and composers include Nicole Lizée, Brian Current, Rene Orth, Ian Cusson, and Ka Nin Chan.

    A World Premiere 

    In June 2021, Tapestry Opera co-presents the world premiere of Dragon’s Tale by the award-winning creative team of composer Ka Nin Chan and librettist Mark Brownell, for a free, outdoor production in partnership with Soundstreams. Dragon’s Tale runs June 17-20, 2021. Further details will be announced later this season.

    Live Audience Flexibility

    Should conditions change for the better to allow people to safely come together, Tapestry Opera will open its livestreamed concert series to invite a live audience and explore larger opportunities for adding a production to this season.

  • COVID-19: Cancel, Adapt, Evolve

    COVID-19: Cancel, Adapt, Evolve

    By this time, our communities have come to expect the cancelling of live performances due to the severe danger of the current health crisis. 

    The live performances of both Rocking Horse Winner and Iron Road in Concert have been cancelled, a sad but necessary measure to keep our artist and audience communities safe. We believe deeply in the long lives of both of these productions, and look forward to new opportunities to revisit Iron Road and Rocking Horse Winner in future seasons. Our hearts go out to the team and artists at Toronto Summer Music, who have cancelled the entire 2020 festival at which Iron Road in Concert was to be presented.

    We aren’t letting distance slow us down

    While Rocking Horse Winner  will not have a live performance, we have committed to honouring the full amount of every artist’s contract, and long-distance rehearsals begin next week –  we may not know quite what will manifest, but we know that there is a truly incredible group of performers gathering around their laptops to make music, and that some beautiful and prescient art will come out of that. Stay tuned! 

    While we’re so disappointed not to bring these stirring, evocative pieces back to vivid life, we know that this is not the end of these shows or the incredible cast of Rocking Horse Winner. Follow us on social media and watch this space for videos and announcements!

  • Tapestry Opera cancels upcoming production in wake of COVID-19 but will honour artist fees

    Tapestry Opera cancels upcoming production in wake of COVID-19 but will honour artist fees

    Special virtual concert by Krisztina Szabó and Christopher Foley on
    March 21 will replace     Songbook X performances

    TORONTO — In light of recent developments concerning COVID-19, Tapestry Opera will cancel its upcoming New Opera 101 masterclasses and public performances of Songbook X, which were scheduled to take place next week. Acknowledging that many professionals who rely on the gig economy may be put into a difficult financial position by cancellations such as these, the company will pay the artists and production personnel their fees, and will refund the masterclass participants’ tuition. Tapestry hopes to reschedule Songbook X for a later date, but has no firm plans to share at this time.

    In place of the public performances, Songbook X headliners Krisztina Szabó, mezzo-soprano, and Christopher Foley, pianist, will appear in a special virtual concert on Saturday, March 21st, at 8 p.m. Performing live from Tapestry’s Ernest Balmer Studio, Szabó and Foley will present a selection of best-loved Tapestry works and other favourites, live-streamed on the company’s YouTube channel @TapestryNewOpera free of charge.

    Tapestry’s highly anticipated spring production of Rocking Horse Winner, which reunites much of the original, award-winning cast and creative team, is still scheduled to proceed as planned from April 23 to May 2, 2020 at Streetcar Crowsnest. Should COVID-19 continue to escalate and live performances be cancelled, Tapestry Opera publically commits to paying artists their agreed-upon fees. 

    According to Tapestry Opera’s Artistic and General Director Michael Hidetoshi Mori, “Many artists live paycheque to paycheque. In this destabilizing time of cancellations, Tapestry is committed to doing whatever we can to support our community of opera professionals.”

    Holders of single tickets for Songbook X will be contacted by Tapestry Opera in due course and offered full refunds.

    ABOUT TAPESTRY OPERA: Celebrating its 40th anniversary season, Tapestry Opera is an award-winning Toronto-based company, dedicated to advancing the evolution of opera through creating, developing and performing original Canadian works. The company is passionate about uniquely Canadian stories and music, performed in innovative settings, unforgettably interpreted by world class singers and musicians. Tapestry supports emerging artists, develops new audiences and brings Canadian opera to the world stage. Founded in 1979, it is the voice of original contemporary Canadian opera. 

    For more information, please contact:

    Jaime Martino
    jmartino@tapestryopera.com