Most new Canadian operas get an initial run (if they are lucky) and then disappear. Luna Pearl Woolf and Royce Vavrek’s Jacqueline is unusual in that following it’s premiere at Tapestry Opera in Toronto in 2020 it also played in San Francisco in 2024 and is now back in Toronto for a revival at Tapestry; once again directed by Michael Mori. There’s even, we are told, a fourth run at a yet to be disclosed company in the works. In some ways it’s not such a surprise. In these cash strapped times the appeal of a very good full length opera that only requires two soloists; no orchestra, no chorus, ought to be obvious!
The Canadian Art Song Project (CASP) has announced that Laurence Jobidon (right) and Jesse Plessis (left) are the inaugural mentees in the Chung-Wai Chow and John Wright Art Song Mentorship Programme for Composers; a new CASP initiative designed to support emerging composers working in the field of Canadian Art Song. They will be working with mentors Luna Pearl Woolf and Jocelyn Morlock, respectively.
Over the course of the next year, Laurence Jobidon will be working with Luna Pearl Woolf on her project that sets the poetry of Blanche Lamontagne; the first French-Canadian woman poet to publish under her own name, while Jesse Plessis will be working with Jocelyn Morlock on a project entitled Time’s Kiss that will interweave texts by Rabindranath Tagore, Anne Carson, and Geneviève Plessis.
In some ways listening to ballet music without the visuals is even weirder than listening to opera without them but at least it’s easier to rearrange and abridge ballet music for concert purposes. That’s the case with Max Richter’s Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works which is his condensation of Woolf Works which he wrote for Wayne McGregor and the Royal Ballet. As the name suggests it’s inspired by the works of Virginia Woolf and has three movements based on three of the novels; Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves.
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