News Flash: MISSING goes on tour in November 2019

The acclaimed new Canadian opera Missing, by Marie Clements and Brian Current, and directed by Peter Hinton, is going on tour. After a highly successful run in Vancouver and Victoria in November 2017, giving 14 performances in three venues and two cities, Missing goes on its first tour this month.

VICTORIA
Wingate Studio, Baumann Centre for Opera / 1 and 2 November 2019

REGINA
Regina Performing Arts Centre / 8 and 9 November 2019

PRINCE GEORGE
Uda Dune Baiyoh / 15, 16 and 17 November 2019

After our premieres…

Missing is now the third opera produced beyond its City Opera Vancouver premiere.

In 2015, Margaret Atwood’s first opera, Pauline, toured to Québec.

In 2017, the anti-war opera Fallujah was produced at New York City Opera, and in Los Angeles at Long Beach Opera, where it won an LA Emmy Award.

In 2019, Missing tours to Victoria, Prince George and Regina.

 

THE OPERA

Missing tells a story everyone knows, from the vantage of a woman no one remembers.

A new chamber opera by Métis playwright Marie Clements and Juno-winning composer Brian Current, Missing gives voice, in English and Gitxsan, to the story of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women. Set in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and along the Highway of Tears, Missing is a poetic expression of loss and hope.

Missing is an extraordinarily moving and thought-provoking work… a magnificent mélange of singing, acting and music that, one hopes, will be seen by audiences across Canada and the world. – The Whole Note, Toronto

Co-produced by City Opera Vancouver and Pacific Opera Victoria, in association with Vancouver Moving Theatre and the DTES Heart of the City Festival, Missing had its world première in Vancouver and Victoria in November 2017. It was generously supported by – among others – The Vancouver Foundation, the City of Vancouver, the Edwina and Paul Heller Memorial Fund, the Stern Family Fund, the Lando Foundation, the private donors to City Opera, the BC Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

This tour is organized by Pacific Opera Victoria, and made possible by the generous support of Creative BC, the Province of British Columbia, Women and Gender Equality Canada, Sask Culture, K+S Potash, and City of Regina.

PERSONNEL

The creative team and many of the opera artists who premiered the production in 2017 have reunited. Distinguished director Peter Hinton, who has significantly impacted the evolution of contemporary Canadian theatre through his commitment to new play development, Indigenous theatre and revisionist productions of canonical works, and conductor Timothy Long, Music Director of Opera at the Eastman School of Music and founding conductor of The Coast Orchestra, a Native American orchestra of classically trained musicians, are joined by an accomplished cast of singing actors.

Returning cast members include Coast Salish mezzo-soprano Rose-Ellen Nichols, Kwagiulth and Stó: lō mezzo soprano Marion Newman, Alberta-born soprano Caitlin Wood, and mezzo-soprano Heather Molloy. Joining the cast for the 2019 tour are tenor Jan van der Hooft, baritone Kyle Lehmann, and Saugeen Ojibway/Métis soprano Joana Burt, who made her Canadian Opera Company debut in 2017 as Sarah Riel in Louis Riel.

Scenic and projection design is by Andy Moro with costume design by Carmen Thompson, lighting by John Webber, and sound design by Sandy Scofield.

 

“We are proud and grateful that Missing will now be taken to other parts of Canada. The story has always been a national tragedy. Now, it will have a national audience. We deeply appreciate our artists, and our partners at Pacific Opera, for leading the tour.”– Trudy Chalmers, General Manager, City Opera Vancouver