Frontiers

Composer John Mills Cockell and librettist Ken Gass’s opera Savitri & Sam was inspired by the true story of Savitri, a 17-year old high school student living in a remote Punjabi community of northern British Columbia. After her secret relationship with Sam, an 18-year old aboriginal boy of Haisla heritage is exposed she is tragically stabbed to death by her father. The story is all the more poignant because of the intense idyllic love of the young couple, who seemed so ideally suited for one another, despite their different cultural heritages.

In William David Cooper and Will Dunlap’s grand Biblical opera Hagar and Ishmael, Egyptian handmaid Hagar encounters an angel after she flees Abraham’s camp, who tells her an incredible prophecy about her son Ishmael. Sixteen years later, Ishmael learns that newborn Isaac will be Abraham’s successor, and tries to kill him. Exiled and desperate in the desert, Hagar and Ishmael find faith, freedom and a marvelous destiny.

Domestic by composer-librettist Ben Stevenson is a set of two one-act operas exploring the ways that people interact when no one is watching. Act One – An Enigma – is about how people end a relationship, while Act Two – percs. – is about the hope that others can offer when things seem hopeless.