No further information available.
Tornrak
1990 • 120'
Performance History
World Preview Performances
Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada
23rd February 1990
Reviews
” An absorbing, thought-provoking and very approachable new opera ”
Rodney Milnes – Financial Times
” Metcalf’s engaging score adds Inuit Throat singing and other extended vocal sounds to an evocative pallette . . . .”
Times Educational Supplement
” The two-act opera revealed a score whose musical vocabulary is imaginative . . . often vividly expressive and modern,without being shockingly radical . . . Tornrak was a remarkable achievement”
Harvey Chusid – Opera Canada
Supporting Information
A complete review by Eric Dawson, Calgary Herald; Calgary, Alta. [Calgary, Alta]25 Feb 1990: E1.
Old theme finds new vehicle
Abstract
Based on a true story, Tornrak centres on the Inuit woman Milak, who saves a shipwrecked English sailor from death in the Canadian arctic. Another ship arrives and takes them to Britain, where she is reduced to penury as a sideshow savage. She escapes, only to be caught and sentenced to die for killing sheep and feeding them to the poor.
Richard Armstrong “sang” the animals of Tornrak – a polar bear, a wolf and Frankie the trained bear – as well as the part of Utak, Milak’s father. His growls and howls, not to mention his skill in duplicating the bear movements (Lea Schaetzel played the wolf tornrak as a wonderfully sensual beast), were always convincing and never a musical- dramatic stunt.
These elements and the sheer physical beauty and effectiveness of the staging were among Tornrak’s delights. Michael Whitfield’s skill at painting the stage with light was especially effective. John Pennoyer’s costumes were ingeniously detailed. The change from Milak’s unpretentious clothing in the north to her stiff “ethnic” costume adopted for Europe was well noted.
Full Text
TORNRAK, an opera by Michael Wilcox and John Metcalf, at the Banff Centre.
BANFF – The depradations 19th-century Europeans visited on native Americans is not a new theme but it has found a striking new vehicle in John Metcalf’s opera Tornrak, which premiered Friday at the Banff Centre.
Tornrak is the Inuktitut word for spirit or guardian, and the opera was clearly blessed with the guidance of a talented crew led by director Mike Ashman and a strong cast. Commissioned by the Welsh National Opera, it will go on to Great Britain for eight further performances there in May.
Based on a true story, Tornrak centres on the Inuit woman Milak, who saves a shipwrecked English sailor from death in the Canadian arctic. Another ship arrives and takes them to Britain, where she is reduced to penury as a sideshow savage. She escapes, only to be caught and sentenced to die for killing sheep and feeding them to the poor.
We know who stands in the composer’s favor when the Dies irae, the Gregorian chant for the Day of Wrath, resounds in the orchestra with the approach of the second British ship. Librettist Michael Wilcox and Ashman have their fun with the Europeans as well, mocking their pious platitudes and drawing what little humor there is in the tale from the pompous crew.
Metcalf seconds Wilcox’s efforts to define their characters, and often with unconventional means. Milak, fervently performed by mezzo-soprano Fides Krucker, brings both a traditional operatic vocal technique to the role and a knowledge of Inuit throat singing.
Richard Armstrong “sang” the animals of Tornrak – a polar bear, a wolf and Frankie the trained bear – as well as the part of Utak, Milak’s father. His growls and howls, not to mention his skill in duplicating the bear movements (Lea Schaetzel played the wolf tornrak as a wonderfully sensual beast), were always convincing and never a musical- dramatic stunt.
Metcalf took great pains to create a distinct musical unit of each scene, no matter how short. A single theme or thematic cell, be it a few notes or a simple arpeggio repeated at length, extended, headily embellished, provides the basic idea out of which develop variations and a tonal landscape of considerable diversity.
The composer’s skill as an orchestrator was evident throughout. The thematic workings were often exceeded in interest by the decorative element provided by the instrument or group of instruments assigned to an individual or a scene.
Upper register piano figurations greeted every appearance of the spirits assigned to Arthur. Eerie string harmonics pointed the transition from the relative security of the ship to isolation and approaching death in the icefields.
These elements and the sheer physical beauty and effectiveness of the staging were among Tornrak’s delights. Michael Whitfield’s skill at painting the stage with light was especially effective. John Pennoyer’s costumes were ingeniously detailed. The change from Milak’s unpretentious clothing in the north to her stiff “ethnic” costume adopted for Europe was well noted.
Despite Krucker’s best efforts, Milak was not. Her music is of more modest interest than anything given the other leads. (The accompaniment of the Banff orchestra was enthusiastic but very rough; the Welsh may form a different impression given a better performance.)
And her character here was only half-evident. Krucker sang the first act entirely in Inuktitut and no translation was available.