With June’s Pride Month comes celebration and recognition of how much has changed since the country’s first Pride marches in 1979 in Vancouver and Montreal. But with many current headlines comes a reminder of an uncomfortable truth: The homophobia that fuelled the raid by Toronto Police on four gay bathhouses in 1981 isn’t ancient history after all.
Ancient history, and its connection with 20th century gay history, are precisely the elements that interest composer Kye Marshall and librettist Amanda Hale. Their new opera aims to remind audiences of the ways in which history can, and does, painfully repeat – but also how it might be changed., a Canadian Opera Company co-production with Vancouver Opera that will tour to Vancouver in August, 2024, is inspired by Hale’s 2007 poetry collection,.
The venue, with its exposed brick and shuttered windows, is a dramatic change from the company’s usual digs, the opulent Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. But director Jennifer Tarver takes full advantage of the space’s intimacy. Her staging of seemingly simple moments – the blocking of the chorus, for instance, into ever-shifting couples – are poetically attuned to the sweeping sounds of Marshall’s score, which is led with gusto by conductor Rosemary Thomson.
Along with Kasahara is a uniformly strong cast led by Buonaiuto, who channels claustrophobic rage into a bell-like soprano sound, and Dunn, whose sweet tones and expressive gestures convey the difficult navigation of identity within society. Has the world really changed so much since 1981? The opera ends on a powerful, hopeful note.