Life Beyond the Premiere: Process and Purpose at Tapestry Music Theatre

Abstract

When Elsewhereless, the new opera by Atom Egoyan and Rodney Sharman (originally presented at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in April-May 1998), reopened at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in July, it was said to be the first Canadian opera to be performed in the Centre since the 1960s. The same production of Elsewhereless will also be presented in Vancouver in early 1999 and is scheduled for several European festivals. At a time when new operas and music theatre works all too easily disappear from view after their premieres, the already assured life of this work is salutary. While Elsewhereless undoubtedly owes much to the renown of its librettist and director (Egoyan) and its composer (Sharman), its continuing stage-life is very much part of the avowed strategy of Tapestry Music Theatre, which nurtured its development along with Vancouver New Music. Since its founding in 1985 (as a transformation of Tapestry Singers), Tapestry Music Theatre has committed itself not only to the development of new Canadian music theatre and opera, but also to its continued performance life beyond the premiere. Thus its day-to-day focus is divided between work in development, new work in current production, and continuing production of earlier work. One of its outstanding successes, Nigredo Hotel by Nic Gotham and Ann-Marie MacDonald, was first presented by Tapestry and Tarragon in Toronto in 1992 and subsequently toured to Britain in 1993, and then to Victoria and Vancouver, before returning to Toronto in 1995. Tapestry premiered Theresa Tova’s Still the Night in Toronto in 1996, launched its first national tour in Calgary in 1997 and has plans for a further tour in 1999. In May 1998, during the final week of the Toronto run of Elsewhereless, with the phone ringing incessantly, Harry Lane talked to Tapestry’s general manager and producer, Claire Hopkinson, and its artistic director, Wayne Strongman, about their mandate and their process. The interview was transcribed by Christopher Tracy.