Vancouver, BC – Written February 9th, 2024 – The Canadian premiere of a contemporary masterpiece from City Opera Vancouver: Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, will be on stage Feb 29, Mar 2 & 3 at the York Theatre. (639 Commercial Dr, Vancouver)
This production also marks City Opera Vancouver’s first full-length opera with Gordon Gerrard as Canadian Artistic Director, who joined the 18-year-old organization last June 2023
“City Opera’s successful track record reflects its understanding of meaningful community connection and the power of great operatic storytelling,” says Gerrard. “I’m honoured to join this respected organization and build on its inspired traditions of collaboration, inclusion and impactful music-making. It’s a perfect time to seize new possibilities for creating modern engaged chamber opera experiences that enrich the cultural life of Vancouver and solidify City Opera’s place as a vital contributor to the Canadian experience.
The role of Swiss Isabelle Eberhardt will be performed by Indigenous mezzo-soprano Marion Newman, who last performed with City Opera Vancouver in 2017’s highly praised Missing, about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG). She is a critically acclaimed mezzo-soprano of Kwagiulth and Stó:lō First Nations with English, Irish and Scottish heritage
Isabelle Wilhelmine Marie Eberhardt (17 February 1877 – 21 October 1904) was a Swiss explorer and author, who was born in Geneva.
City Opera Vancouver exists to give a voice to underrepresented communities through opera and song. Song from the Uproar is another opportunity to share about this little known – yet impactful – feminist icon who defied social norms to become an outspoken anticolonial voice.
Written by acclaimed Brooklyn composer Missy Mazzoli, in collaboration with Canadian librettist Royce Vavrek, the work details the adventurous life and untimely death of explorer and early feminist icon, Isabelle Eberhardt, who lived from 1877-1904. The multimedia opera, which features vignettes from her life using film, photography and Eberhardt’s own writings, made its debut in 2012 in New York.
Eberhardt left her native Switzerland for Algeria at age 20, where she dressed as a man, converted to Islam and joined a Sufi order, roamed the desert on horseback and fell in love with an Algerian soldier. All of these adventures happened after the death of her mother, brother and father in Switzerland. She died at age 27, drowning in a desert flash flood, which brought an end to her nomadic and unfettered existence in the deserts of North Africa.
For The New York Times Steve Smith wrote that “in the electric surge of Ms. Mazzoli’s score you felt the joy, risk and limitless potential of free spirits unbound.
For more information see: https://thecultch.com/event/song-from-the-uproar-the-lives-and-deaths-of-isabelle-eberhardt/ Tickets are from $25 to $68.
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