16 Jul Do You Hear Me?

An opera for solo soprano and singing violinist; duration 18 minutes

Commissioner: Vocalypse Productions (Janice Jackson, Artistic Director)

Funding: The Ontario Arts Council

Synopsis

Pat LePage is a gender-fluid first-year Dalhousie undergrad living in Shirreff Hall. Having fled hatred and violence in her small New Brunswick town to find diversity and acceptance in Halifax, she learns she’s pregnant from a sexual assault in her home town several months earlier. In shock, she enters a trance state, and meets a ghost whose story mirrors her own—which led to suicide a hundred years ago, but this time the story has a different ending.

Librettist’s note

This mini-opera is inspired by the story of Penelope the Ghost of Shirreff Hall, as told by generations of undergraduates and as codified in various compendia of Halifax lore, and in the student newspaper The Dalhousie Gazette (see especially the 2021 article by Ryan McNutt). The characters are fictional; the ‘Alma Redemptoris Mater’ is traditional. With thanks to Raine Forbes-Myers, Jonah Leibu, and Claire Yurkovich, for research support, and the Ontario Arts Council for generously funding it through the Music Creation program.