Boundary pushing company Against the Grain Theatre will be presenting an evening that promises the world premieres of three new Canadian mini-operas. Canuck Cantatas has teamed up six artists into three duos of librettist and composer, with one member of each duo also doubling as the performing artists.
The composers include Sonny-Ray Day Rider, Sarah Slean, and Danika Lorèn, and they’ve been paired up with librettists Royce Vavrek (also Artistic Director of Against the Grain), Emma Pennell, and Vern Thiessen. Heather Slater will produce, with Lesley Abarquez Bradley acting as stage manager.
Canuck Cantatas takes place April 10 to 12 at Toronto’s Redwood Theatre.
Expect bold work, and thoughtful miniature operas which bring to life fictional Canadian characters who form part of the Canadian identity in various ways.
LV caught up with AtG Artistic Director Royce Vavrek to talk about the initiative.
Royce Vavrek: The Interview
It turns out that Canuck Cantatas is an idea Vavrek’s been nursing since he was appointed AtG’s Artistic Director back in 2024.
“It was one of the first things that I dreamt up when I was even in the interview process for this post,” he says.
“I love commissions,” he adds. “This felt like a really nice opportunity to create some new operas.”
As he points out, basing the initiative on 15-minute operas also meant that new works could be created fairly quickly, while still making works with substance. “We could do very meaningful projects,” Vavrek says. “There’s a lot of potential in the 15 minutes. You can do a lot in 15 minutes that doesn’t occupy all your developmental time.”
Becoming AD of Against the Grain meant that Vavrek, who has worked internationally for much of his career, could also focus on creating Canadian content.
“I was hungry to get some new Canadian repertoire into the world,” he says. “I started thinking of what is of value right now? I’m feeling very Canadian these days,” he adds. “I think our ideas of what opera can be are very broad.”
Creating serious Canadian content, and presenting it in Toronto, is one of his goals.
“I have been so lucky to do a little bit of Canadian work in my life.
He mentions the operas Mermaid in the Jar, based on the short story by Sheila Heti, and with music by Rachel J. Peters, which premiered at the Oberlin Conservatory in 2020, and Adoration, based on Canadian director Atom Egoyan’s film of the same name, which premiered in 2024 in New York City.
“I feel like I’ve been tiptoeing into Canadian stories. My career has been very international,” he says. It’s time for more emphasis on Canadian artists. “We’re awesome,” he adds.
The Project
Once the teams were assembled, they were given the criteria for Canuck Cantatas.
“I asked the teams […] to create a fictional Canadian character,” Vavrek explains. The 15-minute opera for one soloist could consist of one or more movements, and feature a theatrical arc that speaks to the Canadian experience.
“I think it’s going to be very cool,” he says. “The soloists are all young women, but the diversity within those experiences is very exciting.”
The soloist performers include sopranos Emma Pennell, who’s also acting as a librettist, Sarah Slean, and Danika Lorèn. The latter two are also composing the operas they’ll perform.
“There was something really exciting about this cohort of creators,” he says. He’s excited to hear Slean and Lorèn sing their own music, and Pennell interpret her own libretto. That was a serendipitous outcome, and not one of the requirements. “It’s not a prerequisite that they perform their own work,” he says.
The Operas
He’s hoping that the event will be just the first iteration of Canuck Cantatas. “While it wasn’t necessarily how I imagined it from the ground level, I would love for this to be a [series that repeats],” he says.
He says it’s been a fulfilling experience so far. As librettist, he’s paired up with Sarah Slean.
“Sarah Slean is absolutely one of my most favourite artists,” he says.
Danika Lorèn is paired with Vern Thiessen. “[Their opera is called] “The Close Encounters of Faith Friesen”,” Vavrek shares. Faith is working alone in a radio station. She’s obsessed with the idea of making contact with aliens.
Emma Pennell and Blackfoot composer Sonny-Ray Day Rider’s opera is titled “Red Daughters”. Vavrek calls it “a haunting meditation on girlhood, memory, and survival”. Rider comes from the Kainai Blood Tribe, and Emma’s roots include a mix of settler and Mi’kmaw of the Ktaqmkuk people, who come from what is now Newfoundland. The protagonist of the opera carries her wishes from her home among the trees into the city, where she knows she may not be safe.
The opera Vavrek and Slean have created is titled Kimberly Dunbar, and tells the story of a mother who is desperately trying to influence everything and everyone in her environment— including banning books, and building a like-minded community.
Vavrek says he was struck by the viral video of Margaret Atwood attempting to burn her own Handmaid’s Tale. “I was very inspired by Margaret’s video,” he says.
He calls Kimberly Dunbar a “misguided woman” who genuinely believes she’s doing what’s best for her family. She thinks banning books makes the world safer. Representing her without demonizing her was part of the point.
“It was important to Sarah and I,” he explains. “There was something really fascinating about creating a character who didn’t have the same political beliefs, but not vilifying her. Building bridges and compassion [are] major buzzwords for a reason,” he adds.
The operas will each be performed in full.
“There will be staging,” he continues, “lean and mean, but a full production.”
The Importance Of Canadian Content
Vavrek points out that Canada as a nation is younger than the art of opera itself. He believes creating Canadian works plays an important role in developing opera repertoire overall. The world needs Canadian ideas.
“How important it is that we really double down on our Canadian ideas and amplify them as loudly as possible,” he says.
“I really hope we can build a bigger volume of literature. We need to seize this moment,” he says.
“To make sure that our contemporary vantage is represented in art.”
- Find tickets and show details for Canuck Cantatas, April 10 to 12, 2026, [HERE].
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