Sanctuary Song

WELCOME

NOTES

SYNOPSIS

CREATORS

CAST

ORCHESTRA

CREATIVE

PRODUCTION

NANCY & ED JACKMAN PERFORMANCE CENTRE

SPONSORS

TAPESTRY OPERA

Welcome to Sanctuary Song. If it’s your first time at a Tapestry show, welcome. If you know us well, welcome back! Either way, we’re so glad you’re here with us for our first mainstage production in our new home, the Nancy & Ed Jackman Performance Centre.

Nearly three years after leaving the Distillery District, and 17 years after the World Premiere of this beautiful show, we’re excited to share this space with you for a new retelling of Sanctuary Song. It’s a fitting first show, resting as it does on our shared desire for freedom, our collective longing for home.

We are transported into the world of Sydney, an elephant yearning for a life beyond captivity. Her journey, filled with moments of friendship, loss, and ultimately, hope, invites us to reflect on our understanding of belonging and the ties that bind, the resilience of the spirit, and the enduring power of memory.

Dear friends, we’re so happy to have found a home. Thank you for being here with us.

With gratitude and joy – Michael Mori, Artistic & General Director, Jaime Martino, Executive Director, and Stephanie Applin, Director of Advancement

Composer’s Note
Music is a linear art form. Its time dimension makes it dynamically reflective of our lives and, therefore, emotionally immediate and powerful. To be a music writer is to be a storyteller. In opera, the music makes us live the experiences of characters in whatever situations they find themselves in. 

As house pets, the well-defined characters of English pointer dogs have played ever-present roles in my life, so writing an opera about the experience of an elephant was no leap of faith. I wrote Sydney as a dignified soprano, an elegant lady, and the music takes us through time and space as we delve into Sydney’s memories. Are we in the angular, cold jail with her new jailer or in the Indonesian jungles of her youth? We feel her fear, love, memories and dreams. This was my first work intentionally written for children and adults, soon followed by another storytelling work for all ages, The Hockey Sweater.
– Abigail Richardson-Schulte

Librettist’s Note
In 2003, Abigail and I met, walking across the bridge as we headed to our first experience of Tapestry’s LIBLAB.  At that time, I did not have a professional play yet produced, and here I was thrust head and heart first into creative partnerships with composers as we experimented, tossed around ideas and yes, wrote operas. 

One of the provocations offered during the workshops was considering what could only be adequately expressed through this form. I was inspired by a documentary about a captive elephant, Shirley, who, at that time, was retiring to a sanctuary and was reunited with a childhood friend. I was also struck by her intimate and complex friendship with the zookeeper. At the LIBLAB, Abigail and I debuted a few minutes of our exploration, the beginning of this journey. 

To me, opera evokes the grand, majestic, and expressive. When writing the libretto, I could think of nothing more grand, majestic, and expressive than the nuanced life of elephants. Shirley proved to be the ultimate inspiration, allowing us to look through the eyes of these magnificent animals. Enjoy.
– Marjorie Chan 陳以珏

Director’s Note
It is a profound honour to create a new production for Sanctuary Song, a piece that has left an indelible mark on Canadian music theatre since its world premiere in 2008. I’ve encountered so many people—artists, audience members, educators—who remember that first production vividly. It was a unique fusion of artistic ambition and emotional resonance, created by the extraordinary team of librettist Marjorie Chan and composer Abigail Richardson-Schulte.

Marjorie’s libretto is a poetic and powerful voice for the voiceless, offering a lens into memory, trauma, and ultimately, healing. Abigail’s music is equally astonishing—lyrical, intricate, and emotionally direct. The integrity of their collaboration is evident in every beat of this work. It’s no surprise to me—or to anyone who has heard Sanctuary Song—that the Toronto Symphony Orchestra was so moved by its premiere that they commissioned Abigail to compose The Hockey Sweater, now one of the most frequently performed orchestral works in Canada. That legacy began here.

At the heart of Sanctuary Song is the elephant—a creature of immense intelligence, emotion, and memory. Elephants carry so much within them, and in this opera, they become mirrors for our own humanity as we struggle with independence and loneliness in the age of social media, and helplessness or the struggle for resilience in the face of an increasingly challenging world order. Like the elephant, we too are asked to entertain, conform, and endure—but how often do we consider the cost?

This production is a meditation on that duality, and a call to confront the systems that confine us, be they physical, emotional, or societal. It’s also a tribute to those who resist them. One of the most inspiring figures behind this story is Carol Buckley, whose unwavering compassion and perseverance led to the creation of The Elephant Sanctuary—an actual place of peace, dignity, and healing. Her work reminds us that sanctuary is not just a location, but a way of being in the world.
I invite you to enter this story with an open heart and to consider what it means to be free, to be remembered, and to be truly seen.
– Michael Hidetoshi Mori