Natalya Gennadi, who plays the titular character in Oksana G, admits the strain of playing the role has affected her during rehearsal.
Director Tom Diamond is working with two singers, a conductor and a rehearsal pianist, in the Ernest Balmer Studio in Toronto's Distillery District. The two women are singing in Ukrainian. One has a stick by way of a crutch. Diamond is encouraging them to show as much emotion as they can in the scene – but he doesn't have to work too hard. We're near the end of Oksana G., a new Canadian opera by librettist Colleen Murphy and composer Aaron Gervais about the horrors of human trafficking, opening May 24. We're watching the injured Oksana say goodbye to a friend at a shelter in Italy as she prepares to return home – the emotion on display is, well, operatic.
Oksana G. is, among other things, the most ambitious project Tapestry Opera has mounted in over a decade. With 40 singers on stage, 13 principal roles and an orchestra of 15, the two-hour-long production is several times bigger, and more expensive, than anything the Toronto company has done for years. Tapestry has a long history of worthy, imaginative forays into the world of Canadian independent opera, but this feels like something different. Like any artistic gamble, Oksana G. provides Tapestry with much excitement and much trepidation. "I could have not done it," Tapestry artistic director Michael Mori says. "I had to think about that. Not doing it was an option. But it's really good. What do you do if you have something that's really good?"
Oksana G. has been in gestation for more than 10 years. It started as a mini-project that teamed Murphy and Gervais to do just a single scene for a Tapestry workshop back in 2005-06. "That scene isn't even in the opera any more," Murphy remembers, seated in the rehearsal space. "But Aaron and I were determined to do something about the contemporary world."
In 2005, an emerging story was that of the worldwide scourge of human trafficking – enforced sexual slavery. Murphy, who does not shy away from harrowing subjects (she won the 2016 Governor-General's Award for English Drama for Pig Girl, based on the Robert Pickton murders), went to work reading everything she could on the subject. After several other workshops over the years, the opera was more or less ready to go in 2013.
The production tells the story of a young Ukrainian girl, lured into the horror of human trafficking, who eventually escapes to a refuge in Italy and a return home. It is full of dark, harsh scenes – none, however, unrealistic or forced. But Murphy, an accomplished playwright and filmmaker, is intrigued by her first foray into opera. "Opera's very beautiful, there's no getting away from that – even if you take something that's as ugly as this subject. But as soon as you introduce one single musical interval, you're in some ways reaching for beauty. It's a strange juxtaposition, but I think a very dramatic one. People will react to it as they will. It's really not up to me."
Mori is also excited about the prospect of opera taking on major societal and political issues. Tapestry's earlier production this season, Naomi's Road, dealt with the internment of Japanese-Canadians in this country during the Second World War. "In this special Canada 150 year," he says, "I'm proud that in our season we've shown Canadians' ability to embrace stories that are both difficult and redemptive. Part of what we want to do as a company is to break down stereotypes of what opera is and can do.
"We're not programming for the new-opera audience, because there really isn't any such thing. We're constantly thinking about the wider public, to be able to present something to them that welcomes their response."
And Mori realizes that the scope and scale of Oksana G. is central to his company's medium- and long-term goals. "I'm hearing from people who say to me, 'I'm excited about the next thing you're going to do.' Some of these are Canadian Opera Company subscribers; some have never set foot in the Four Seasons Centre. What we're hoping to do is establish a clear profile for our work."
Back in the Balmer studio, Diamond is speaking earnestly and quietly to Natalya Gennadi, who is playing Oksana G. This role is a big stretch for the young Ukrainian-Canadian singer, who was called in to play the lead on relatively short notice when Ambur Braid, who was originally cast, found herself with another opportunity in Europe. Gennadi admits that the strain of playing such an emotionally demanding role has affected her during rehearsal. But she credits her team – director Diamond, music director Jordan de Souza and coach Gregory Oh – with keeping her on an even keel as she negotiates both the dramatic and musical demands of the work. And, inevitably, she reflects on how close her personal experiences are with those of Oksana. "She's just an average girl, maybe four or five years younger than I was when I lived in Ukraine. But we both studied English; we both wanted to go to university; we both dreamed of a better future," Gennadi says. "She's just a regular teen to whom unspeakable things happen. Yes, there's a lot that's shocking in the opera – but there is lots of love and lots of hope as well. Oksana is indomitable – nothing can completely keep her down."
As with Oksana, so with Tapestry. This is a company that has been around for more than 35 years, but it is expanding and flexing its muscles in new ways that can only be good for anyone dedicated to the health of opera and theatre in Toronto. And although the theme of human trafficking feels somewhat remote from modern-day Toronto, it is much closer than it seems. With digital communication, traffickers can increasingly organize themselves and sell their human product much more efficiently, and well beyond the scrutiny of law enforcement.
As we part, Mori tells me that the Toronto Police Department has told him there are recruiters for human traffickers in every high school in the city. The world of Oksana G. is not as distant as we would like to think.
Oksana G. runs May 24 through May 30 at the Imperial Oil Opera Theatre in Toronto (tapestryopera.com).