Pomegranate
Kye Marshall & Amanda HaleJUNE 2, 3, AND 4, 2023
Canadian Opera Company Theatre
227 Front St. E., Toronto, Ontario
WORLD PREMIERE
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A ground-breaking, lesbian love story about Suli and Cassia, who seek to express their love for each other freely in the face of impossible odds. As the time-shifting narrative moves from a women’s temple in ancient Pompeii to a Toronto lesbian bar in 1981, the orchestral music alters as well, from harp accompaniment to electric piano.
The couple struggles to repair their love in the face of homophobia and an impossible ultimatum, while fragments of memory endure, revealing a transcendent love for the ages.
CAST AND CREATIVE TEAMS
Composer: Kye Marshall
Librettist: Amanda Hale
Conductor: Rosemary Thomson
Director: Jennifer Tarver
Price Family Chorus Master: Sandra Horst
Suli/Suzie: Adanya Dunn
Livia/Mother Maria: Catherine Daniel
Marcus/Uncle Salvatore: Peter Barrett
Priestess/Jules: Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野
With the COC Orchestra and Chorus
Co-production with Vancouver Opera
Pomegranate is generously underwritten, in part, by The Honourable Nancy Ruth, C.M.
Sandra Horst and the COC Chorus are generously underwritten by Tim & Frances Price
The COC Orchestra is generously sponsored, in part, by W. Bruce C. Bailey, in honour of Christie Darville, COC Deputy General Director, and Johannes Debus, COC Music Director, and in part by The Schulich Foundation
FULL SYNOPSIS
ACT I
Ruins of Pompeii, 1977: A group of kids on a school trip. Suzie and Cass gaze at the Ash-Embrace bodies of two lovers ‘frozen in time.’ The light flickers, something begins to shift, the lovers move, they breathe … the girls are transported to Pompeii 79AD, to the Villa of Mysteries where they fall in love during initiation into the Dionysian Mysteries. The Priestess names them Suli and Cassia and vows to protect them against Roman Centurion, Marcus Quintus. He is enchanted with Suli, and determined to destroy the Mystery Cult and take her as a prisoner to Rome. The Priestess predicts ‘a coming devastation’ as Vesuvius rumbles ever louder and Marcus & his legion invade the inner sanctum of the Temple of Isis.
ACT II
1981, downtown Toronto: Saturday night at the Fly by Night lesbian bar. Jules the Bartender encourages the women to join a protest march against police brutality during last night’s Bathhouse Raid.
Cass mourns her breakup with Suzie and longs to see her. Jules and the women tell Cass, “Forget her.” When Suzie enters the bar, the estranged lovers reminisce about meeting in high school, and becoming lovers for the first time on their school trip to Pompeii. Then Suzie reveals that she’s just come out to her mother. Cass has been thrown out by her own parents and lives in a lonely basement apartment. She wants Suzie to move in with her, but Suzie won’t leave her widowed mom. The couple argue and Cass worries about Suzie’s future; about her uncle’s plans to marry her off.
When Suzie’s Uncle bursts into the bar, all hell breaks loose. He and the mother have followed Suzie and plan to take her home, but Suzie wants freedom to reunite with Cass. She is given an impossible choice – to take the protection of family, or go with her lover and be banished.
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Sung in English
CAST AND CREATIVE TEAMS
Composer: Kye Marshall
Librettist: Amanda Hale
Conductor: Rosemary Thomson
Director: Jennifer Tarver
Price Family Chorus Master: Sandra Horst
Suli/Suzie: Adanya Dunn
Livia/Mother Maria: Catherine Daniel
Marcus/Uncle Salvatore: Peter Barrett
Priestess/Jules: Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野
With the COC Orchestra and Chorus
Co-production with Vancouver Opera
Pomegranate is generously underwritten, in part, by The Honourable Nancy Ruth, C.M.
Sandra Horst and the COC Chorus are generously underwritten by Tim & Frances Price
The COC Orchestra is generously sponsored, in part, by W. Bruce C. Bailey, in honour of Christie Darville, COC Deputy General Director, and Johannes Debus, COC Music Director, and in part by The Schulich Foundation -
FULL SYNOPSIS
ACT I
Ruins of Pompeii, 1977: A group of kids on a school trip. Suzie and Cass gaze at the Ash-Embrace bodies of two lovers ‘frozen in time.’ The light flickers, something begins to shift, the lovers move, they breathe … the girls are transported to Pompeii 79AD, to the Villa of Mysteries where they fall in love during initiation into the Dionysian Mysteries. The Priestess names them Suli and Cassia and vows to protect them against Roman Centurion, Marcus Quintus. He is enchanted with Suli, and determined to destroy the Mystery Cult and take her as a prisoner to Rome. The Priestess predicts ‘a coming devastation’ as Vesuvius rumbles ever louder and Marcus & his legion invade the inner sanctum of the Temple of Isis.
ACT II
1981, downtown Toronto: Saturday night at the Fly by Night lesbian bar. Jules the Bartender encourages the women to join a protest march against police brutality during last night’s Bathhouse Raid.
Cass mourns her breakup with Suzie and longs to see her. Jules and the women tell Cass, “Forget her.” When Suzie enters the bar, the estranged lovers reminisce about meeting in high school, and becoming lovers for the first time on their school trip to Pompeii. Then Suzie reveals that she’s just come out to her mother. Cass has been thrown out by her own parents and lives in a lonely basement apartment. She wants Suzie to move in with her, but Suzie won’t leave her widowed mom. The couple argue and Cass worries about Suzie’s future; about her uncle’s plans to marry her off.
When Suzie’s Uncle bursts into the bar, all hell breaks loose. He and the mother have followed Suzie and plan to take her home, but Suzie wants freedom to reunite with Cass. She is given an impossible choice – to take the protection of family, or go with her lover and be banished.
2022/2023 season creative: BT/A
