Rachel Blanchard and Noam Jenkins in a scene from Adoration, which was written, produced, and directed by Atom Egoyan.Sophie Giraud/Adoration Productions
Among the productions premiering at the Prototype Festival of new opera and music theatre in New York this month is Adoration, a chamber opera adapted from the 2008 Atom Egoyan film about an orphaned high-school student and a foiled act of terrorism.
Running concurrently with the annual festival (Jan. 10-21), is Opera America’s New Works Forum, which includes the showcase Creators in Concert: Canadian New Works. Which prompts the question: Is Adoration a Canadian opera?
Beth MorrisonSupplied
“It could be, in that many people on the creative team are from Canada,” says Beth Morrison, of Beth Morrison Projects, creators and producers of new opera theatre and music theatre and the co-founder of Prototype, now in its 11th season. “But it’s more of a hybrid North American work.”
Beyond Egoyan’s obvious source-material connection, Canadian content also comes in the form of Juno-nominated soprano Miriam Khalil, part of the cast. And Canada’s Royce Vavrek is the librettist for the opera, which was workshopped last summer at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
Morrison spoke with The Globe and Mail about Prototype Festival, the new quasi-Canadian opera and how what could be described as a mutual Adoration society made it happen.
How did the chamber opera adaptation of Adoration come together?
It began with my interest in Mary Kouyoumdjian, a wonderful young composer who had never written an opera. I wanted to be the one to give Mary her first experience with that. Then I brought in a seasoned librettist who we’ve worked with a lot, Royce Vavrek. When I asked them what they wanted to do, they discovered a shared love for Atom Egoyan’s work. They began sending me his films. Adoration seemed to me to be the easiest one to adapt to our medium.
Egoyan is an opera director as well as a filmmaker. Did Royce know him?
It’s a fun story, about them meeting. Royce was at the Metropolitan Opera seeing something when he noticed Atom in the standing-room section. He approached him and said he was a huge fan of his work and told him he was a librettist and that he would love to adapt something. They went out for coffee and Atom basically let Royce have carte blanche. He knew Royce’s work from Angel’s Bone, which we did at Prototype.
Is Atom involved with the Adoration opera?
He has not been involved in the creative process. But Mary and Royce have been in communication along the way.
There is a film component to the opera, yes?
It’s very cinematic. the director we choose, Laine Rettmer, works in film and photography and theatre. The opera weaves in live film, prerecorded film and stage work. There’s also an electronic soundscape accompanying the entire opera, along with our string ensemble, the Silvana Quartet.
Is an electronic soundscape something that resonates with younger audiences and people who don’t usually attend opera?
For sure. I’m always on a quest to bring people to this art form, including younger audiences. Certainly they identify with electronic music, and with sound design in general. It’s a way of evolving the form.
Which is what the Prototype Festival is all about, yes?
When I started it with Kim Whitener, who was with HERE Arts Center at the time, we set out to create a festival to celebrate black box opera with contemporary works. At the time, we were the only ones doing black box opera, which is why we came together. We were trying to create a movement. Eleven years later, we have succeeded. The genre is flourishing.
The opera was workshopped at Canada’s Banff Centre. How did that go?
It was wonderful. We did a final workshop there with their opera program. We did it last summer with the Silvana Quartet, and with the vocal students at Banff. It was an incredible week. It was the first time we were able to bring the full creative team together, which was hugely instrumental when it came to last-minute edits to the storytelling. We also heard the full score for the first time.
Is there a theme to this year’s Prototype, and if there is, how does Adoration fit into it?
People always ask if we program with themes. We don’t. We often find themes once everything is programmed, but we don’t set out to do that. A lot of projects this year are looking at identity. I think Adoration fits into that frame. It’s about a number of things. How we perceive the other, and how we deal with implicit bias. And how we can create stories that are false narratives, but that can become quote-unquote facts or truth by the nature of the internet and going viral.
That’s very topical, with today’s xenophobia. And terrorism is a big part of Adoration as well.
It’s definitely topical. I’m interested in telling the stories of our time, and this feels like a very 21st-century story.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Brad Wheeler