Parélios
Photo by Emily Ding
Opera 5 Festival 2026/Parélios, composed by Cecilia Livingston, libretto by Duncan McFarlane, conducted by Evan Mitchell, directed and choreographed by Jennifer Nichols, Theatre Passe Muraille, Jun. 12 to 14.
Opera 5’s second annual Opera Festival confirms the impression left by last year’s inaugural event: this is a company with ambition, imagination, and a remarkable ability to bring large operas into intimate spaces. The festival’s packed houses were well deserved.
As in its first season, Opera 5 offered two programs, one built around a world-premiere Canadian opera and the other a Puccini double bill of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. While the Puccini pairing proved close to perfection, it is the new work that commands the greatest attention, for the creation of new opera remains essential to the vitality of the art form.
To say that Parélios, with music by Cecilia Livingston and a libretto by Duncan McFarlane, is ambitious would be an understatement. The creators set themselves the formidable task of addressing climate change, migration, and humanity’s relationship with the planet through a work that combines soloists, choir, dancers, and a percussion ensemble.
Equally ambitious was Livingston’s source of inspiration. The opera grew out of her response to The Weather Project, the celebrated 2003 installation by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, a work whose exploration of humanity’s place within the natural world became a creative wellspring for the composer.
Parélios
Photo by Emily Ding
Created for the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in 2003, The Weather Project transformed the vast industrial space into an artificial atmospheric environment. A gigantic semicircular “sun,” reflected in a mirrored ceiling to appear whole, bathed the hall in a golden haze generated by a fine mist. Visitors lay on the floor beneath the glowing orb, becoming part of the installation itself. Blurring the boundaries between nature and artifice, the installation invited reflection on humanity’s relationship with the environment, the collective experience, and the ways in which we perceive and construct our understanding of the natural world.
In the opera Parélios (which means mock sun), the English climate has been destroyed. In an attempt to bring back what was lost, the people try to create along the River Thames what they remember of The Weather Project, and when that fails, they abandon the enterprise, and head south across the English Channel.
Inspired by Eliasson, Carlyn Rahusaar Routledge’s set was dominated by a large circular sphere centred on a backdrop, its surface animated by a seemingly endless succession of projections designed by Nathan Bruce and illuminated by the complementary lighting of Siobhan Sleath.
Beneath this celestial presence, Routledge, working from concepts developed with director/choreographer Jennifer Nichols, created a landscape inspired by the historic Thames riverside. As Nichols explains in her program note, the river once served as London’s great artery, lined with stairways and landing stations connecting people to the city. The set design consequently featured two prominent staircases and a ramp that functioned both literally and metaphorically. For Nichols, the ramp represented a threshold beyond which there is no return, a point of irreversible passage that became increasingly significant as the drama unfolded.
Parélios
Photo by Emily Ding
The dance component proved very important to the storytelling. The two male dancers personifying Helios, the sun god, (Sully Malaeb Proulx) and Boreas, the god of the north wind (Jarrett Siddall), established a symbolic opposition between warmth and cold, creation and destruction. A child (Keira Beasley), representing a lost era when the climate remained stable, provided a poignant reminder of what had been sacrificed when she performed with the men.
Their counterpart was a female figure identified simply as Wind/Woman (Miyeko Ferguson). According to the program notes, if the opera possesses a villain, it is she. As a manifestation of wind, she became the great destabilizing force, capable of eroding landscapes, relationships, and ultimately climate itself. She first appeared surrounded by birdsong and images of natural abundance; by the conclusion, those signs of life have vanished.
Throughout the opera, Nichols repeatedly placed Woman, Helios, and Boreas in a series of trios that function as physical metaphors for environmental decline. Each encounter revealed shifting balances of power as Woman drains the strength of the two elemental forces, sometimes even turning them against one another. Yet despite their combined presence, she consistently emerged as the dominant figure. Beautifully conceived and eloquently performed, the choreography became one of the opera’s greatest strengths. Indeed, the dance element carried much of the work’s emotional and symbolic weight.
If the visual component was striking, the music proved equally compelling. It is astonishing how many colours Cecilia Livingston drew from a percussion quartet , conducted by Evan Mitchell. with precise exactitude. Performed by TorQ Percussion Ensemble, an established group dedicated to exploring the expressive possibilities of percussion music, the score ranged from lyrical to dramatic, from meditative to explosive. At one moment the instruments produced the cacophonous sounds of conflict as elemental forces collided; at another they assumed an almost folk-like warmth as memories of a lost world resurfaced. Elsewhere the music became dirge-like, mourning what had vanished. Livingston’s writing revealed an extraordinary command of texture and atmosphere, creating a score that felt both inventive and emotionally immediate.
Parélios
Photo by Emily Ding
Livingston also demonstrated herself to be a gifted choral composer. The ten-member mixed chorus contributed some of the work’s most affecting passages, at times evoking religious ritual, at others expressing grief, uncertainty, or quiet resilience. Much of the vocal writing was subdued and restrained, reflecting a society existing on the edge of survival. Chris Faris costumed the singers in a combination of rainwear and hiking gear and their dark collective presence suited the melancholy theme of the opera.
Together, the percussion ensemble, chorus, soloists, projections, and choreography created an immersive theatrical experience that often felt dreamlike. One could simply surrender to the flow of images, movement, and sound. Visually the production was beautifully realized, while musically it possessed both originality and considerable strength.
I do, however, have one significant reservation regarding the staging. Nichols chose to integrate the chorus directly into the dramatic action, asking its members not merely to sing but to move through the space and function as participants in the story. Once that decision is made, the performers must be fully committed to the theatrical illusion. A chorus that is acting as a collective character cannot simultaneously remain tethered to music scores. Throughout the performance, choristers carried their scores and, when moving into darker areas of the theatre, attached small lights so they could continue reading. The effect was distracting and repeatedly pulled attention away from the drama.
Had the chorus simply remained stationary as a traditional concert ensemble, carrying the scores would have been unobjectionable. But once they became active participants in the staging, they needed to be off book, instead of awkwardly performing, encumbered as they were. The frustration is that Nichols is clearly a skilled director with a strong sense of visual storytelling. One cannot help but wonder how much further she might have developed the chorus as a dramatic force had its members been off book.
My more substantial reservation concerns Duncan McFarlane’s libretto. I do not understand why so many contemporary librettists seem convinced that profundity can only be achieved through abstraction. Increasingly, new operas are burdened with texts that are dense, arcane, and so determined to be pregnant with meaning that they risk losing contact with the audience altogether. McFarlane’s libretto frequently falls into this trap.
The work is divided into twelve sections, each bearing its own portentous title. Separating them are projected quotations drawn from a wide range of literary and historical sources, including Homer and other classical texts. These appeared in cursive script across the large circular projection surface overhead. Unfortunately, not only were they difficult to read, they also flashed by too quickly.. The result was frustration rather than illumination. If a quotation is intended to deepen our understanding of the work, the audience must first be able to read it.
The same issue extends to the libretto itself. Time and again, McFarlane reached for language that seems designed to sound profound rather than communicate clearly. There is certainly no shortage of ideas in Parélios, nor can one fault its intellectual ambition. Yet too often the text obscures rather than clarifies those ideas. The opera’s themes of climate catastrophe, displacement, memory, and survival are already powerful. They do not require layers of literary allusion and symbolic language to make them significant. Indeed, the production was often at its strongest when the music, movement, and imagery were allowed to speak for themselves. In those moments, the audience could feel the work’s emotional core directly. The libretto, by contrast, too frequently stood between the audience and the story it was trying to tell.
Nor did I ever fully come to grips with the opera’s principal characters. The four soloists are identified as Wanderer (soprano Len Crino), Memory (alto Brenden Lengsfeld), Witness (tenor Ryan Nauta), and Guide (baritone Aaron Dimoff), yet at various points they also become a generalized Voice commenting on the action. Exactly when they were functioning as individual characters and when they were functioning as Voice was rarely clear. Rather than sharpening the drama, these constantly shifting identities added yet another layer of symbolism for the audience to decipher. Their vocal texts could certainly have been clearer, although physically, it did make sense when it was Memory who was manhandled by the dancers and presumably died.
The libretto’s text was frustrating because the opera’s underlying story is actually quite compelling. The image of a climate-ravaged England whose inhabitants attempt to recreate a remembered world before ultimately becoming climate refugees is both timely and emotionally resonant. Credit is due to McFarlane for helping to shape that narrative framework, yet the drama is so heavily encumbered by metaphor, allegory, symbolism, and literary allusion that the audience is asked to spend as much time decoding meaning as experiencing the story itself. In short, whatever happened to the straightforward opera libretto? Complexity and depth need not be enemies of clarity.
To end on a positive note, Parélios received a prolonged standing ovation from the audience, and deservedly so. Whatever my reservations about the libretto, there can be no denying the importance of the undertaking. Opera 5 presented a work that was ambitious, adventurous, and unafraid to grapple with some of the defining issues of our time. The integration of music, dance, theatre, visual art, and environmental themes created a rich interdisciplinary experience that expanded the boundaries of what contemporary opera can be.
The text of Parélios may not always communicate as I would have liked, but the opera is unquestionably a work of imagination, courage, and artistic commitment.
Suor Angelica
Photo by Emily Ding
Opera 5 Festival 2026/Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi, composed by Giacomo Puccini, libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, conducted by Evan Mitchell, directed by Jessica Derventzis, Theatre Passe Muraille, Jun. 3 to 7.
Gianni Schicchi
Photo by Emily Ding
The Puccini double bill of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi deserves a lengthy review of its own. It is not going to get one here, if only because Parélios demands so much discussion. Suffice it to say, Opera 5’s Puccini pairing was simply superb.
Much of the credit belongs to artistic director Jessica Derventzis, who directed both productions with exceptional skill. In the space of a single evening, she delivered two entirely different emotional experiences. I cried during Suor Angelica and laughed throughout Gianni Schicchi. What more could Puccini want?
One of Opera 5’s most valuable initiatives is its summer intern program, which brings advanced students from McGill University’s opera program to Toronto for an intensive period of training. The participants are fully integrated into the festival, performing roles onstage while also gaining hands-on experience in the many practical aspects of producing opera. The results were evident throughout both productions (and Parélios), where the young artists held their own alongside established professionals.
Suor Angelica
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Suor Angelica was anchored by a deeply moving performance from Opera 5 general director Rachel Krehm in the title role and an electrifying turn by internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabo as the implacable Principessa. Their great confrontation scene possessed exactly the emotional voltage the opera requires.
Equally memorable was Chris Faris’ costume design for Szabo. Set in a post World War One aesthetic, the production introduced the Principessa in an extravagant ensemble of velvet, satin, fur, jewels, and a spectacular hat. It was a costume of such ostentatious bad taste that it exquisitely defined the Principessa while immediately distinguishing the wealthy aristocrat from the simple world of the convent. The audience audibly reacted to her entrance.
Routledge’s sets contributed enormously to both operas. The convent courtyard of Suor Angelica was warmly inviting, while the bedroom setting for Gianni Schicchi provided the ideal environment for Puccini’s comic masterpiece. Faris’ costumes, set in the 1920s were equally successful in the comedy. Every member of Buoso Donati’s grasping family was instantly recognizable through dress alone, each costume defining character and social type with wit and precision. One particularly memorable couple appeared colour-coordinated in shades of pink, an inspired visual joke that perfectly captured their vulgarity.
Gianni Schicchi
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Gianni Schicchi himself was performed by the incomparable baritone Gregory Dahl, who possesses an instinctive understanding of comic timing and extracted every laugh Puccini intended. Jeremy Scinocca brought warmth and lyrical beauty to Rinuccio’s great hymn to Florence, while Kate Fogg’s Lauretta delivered a lovely “O mio babbino caro”. Particularly admirable was Derventzis’s decision not to isolate the famous aria as a showpiece but instead to integrate it naturally into the dramatic flow, exactly as Puccini intended.
Most impressive of all was the attention paid to characterization. Every nun in Suor Angelica seemed an individual, and every member of the Donati family in Gianni Schicchi possessed a distinct personality. The productions felt fully inhabited from top to bottom. Combined with strong singing, attractive designs, and first-rate direction, the result was an immensely satisfying evening of Puccini. Opera 5 could hardly have chosen a better companion piece to its ambitious new Canadian opera.
Last but certainly not least is Evan Mitchell, Opera 5’s music director, whose contribution to the Puccini double bill cannot be overstated. Mitchell accomplished something remarkable by reducing Puccini’s lush orchestral scores for an ensemble of just seven instruments: two violins, viola, cello, bass, harp, and piano. Such reductions are extraordinarily difficult to achieve successfully, yet Mitchell preserved the richness, colour, and emotional sweep of the originals. Indeed, he should seriously consider publishing these arrangements, as university opera programs and small companies would undoubtedly welcome access to such expertly crafted versions of these beloved works.
The singers were excellent throughout, and the instrumental contribution deserves equal praise. Mitchell conducted with a theatrical flare that made sure every emotion or comic line landed where it should. The result was an evening that sent me out the door on a complete high. Poor Il Tabarro lost out yet again, but Opera 5’s pairing of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi could hardly have been more successful.