Tornrak is the third opera by Welsh composer John Metcalf. It has an English-language libretto by Michael Wilcox with Inuktitut sections translated by Blendina Makkik.^[1] Set between the worlds of the Canadian Arctic and Victorian Britain, it features Inuit throat singing and other extended vocal techniques that give the Arctic scenes a distinct character. The opera was composed between 1986 and 1990 when Metcalf was working in Canada. It was first staged in 1990 in a co-production by the Banff Centre, where Metcalf worked, and the Welsh National Opera who had commissioned the work.

Composition

Although Welsh National Opera (WNO) had first discussed with Metcalf the possibility of his writing a second opera, after The Journey, for them in 1981,^[1][2] it was not until 1986 that Brian McMaster, the company's then managing director, first brought the composer and librettist together.^[3] After Wilcox had initially started work on another idea, Metcalf contacted him about the true story of a 19th-century Inuit girl, Milak, who rescued a British sailor, Arthur. Like the character in the opera, the true Milak was shown as a circus freak; unlike her, she returned home.^[3]

The development of Tornrak was greatly influenced by Metcalf's move to Canada later in 1986 to teach on the Music Theatre course at the Banff Centre in Alberta.^[1] He subsequently became Artistic Director of the programme and Composer-in-Residence.^[4] Wilcox visited Metcalf in Canada that winter to work on the first draft of the libretto and used the library facilities there to learn about Inuit traditions and mythology.^[1][3] Metcalf too found that the setting enabled him to portray their subject in a more genuine manner. "If I wasn't in the North itself, at least I could now be in contact with a way of looking at the world, the culture, the music, and the language of the Inuit that would have been absolutely impossible in Wales."^[5]

From 1988 onwards, Metcalf tried out sections of the developing opera in workshops at Banff. Such support for new compositions were an important facet of the programme there.^[1] He also had ready access to experienced colleagues such as Keith Turnbull, the Assistant Director on the course, and Richard E. Armstrong who had worked with Roy Hart. Just as Peter Maxwell Davies had composed Eight Songs for a Mad King with Hart's unusual voice and extended vocal techniques in mind, so Metcalf was able to compose Tornrak knowing that Armstrong would participate in the opera and also coach the other performers. Armstrong's repertoire of unusual sounds were used in the writing for the spirits and animals. The Inuit parts also required techniques new to Western singers. Fides Krucker, who played the part of Milak in Banff, visited Iqaluit in 1989 and 1990. There she learnt the Inuit throat singing techniques which she used in her performances and on which she advised Metcalf.^[1]

Wilcox encouraged Metcalf to make any changes to the libretto that he needed. He himself revisited Banff again to update the text.^[1] Even when he was in Britain, he would respond to urgent phone calls to make changes during the workshops.^[3] One of the most significant of the changes to the libretto was the decision to translate much of the first act from English into Inuktitut. Differences in stress patterns between the two languages meant that Metcalf recomposed vocal lines, moving material initially intended to be sung into the orchestral parts.^[1]

Meanwhile, WNO had agreed to a change in the scale of Tornrak. Instead of it being a chamber opera using just ten singers to be performed in small venues in Wales, it would now use a larger cast including a chorus and be staged in the large venues normally used by the full company. While those who were involved in the project were sure that the final work was stronger than it would have otherwise been, the many changes resulted in severe delays to the opera's completion and led to repeated postponements of the first performance.^[3]

Roles

Performance history

Tornrak was given a "World Preview Performance", without a chorus, in workshops in Banff on 23 February 1990.^[6][7] This was a co-production with Welsh National Opera with scenery, props and costumes being shared.^[8] The first performance by WNO was on 19 May 1990 at the New Theatre, Cardiff, two years later than originally planned.^[9][10] This first Welsh performance, with chorus, is often listed as the official première.^[11] A second performance in Cardiff later that month was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.^[12] The production was toured to six English cities during June and July.^[13]

Fides Krucker, the original Milak, kept the role in her repertoire, performing extracts, for example, at the Royal Ontario Museum in 1994^[14]

Description

Tornrak is scored for strings, flute, piccolo, oboe, (doubling cor anglais,) 2 clarinets, (doubling E flat clarinets,) bassoon (doubling contra bassoon,) 2 horns, trumpet, trombone, tuba, piano, vibraphone and separate percussionist. The first act is based on an ascending scale running from C through F to C again using the five black notes; the second act uses a descending scale, again based on C but this time using all white notes taken from the major scale with the exception of the sharpened F (eleventh harmonic).^[15]

While the opera is representative of the composer's early musical style,^[16] it also advances it.^[15] The music is multi-layered and rhythmically complex, much of it using middle colours including woodwind and tuned percussion. In Metcalf's first opera, The Journey, solo instruments, usually high pitched, reacted to the voices; Tornrak makes only occasional use of solo violin or the upper registers of the piano. Extreme colours and registers serve to increase the contrasts already present in earlier works.^[15]

On the non-musical level, too, Tornrak develops ideas seen in the composer's earlier works. Metcalf's sometime collaborator, the writer Mark Morris, notes that Metcalf's first two operas and his cantata The Boundaries of Time had already considered such themes as the clash of cultures, the alienation of individuals from their surroundings, the attempts of humanity to communicate with Nature and the displacement of individuals from their homelands.^[1][15] These all appear in his third opera. Tornrak presents the theme of clashing cultures most strongly in two crowd scenes musically distinct from the balance of the score: in the fair and court scenes, the music is vertical, reflecting the clash in values between those present, whereas in most of the opera each layer has its own momentum and the music develops horizontally, representing individual destinies that largely develop autonomously.^[15]

The score is remarkable for its incorporation of Inuit throat singing and other extended vocal techniques, establishing distinct sound worlds for the scenes set in the Arctic and those set in Victorian Britain.^[11][16] Indigenous singers took part in the workshops in Banff and also travelled to Wales to train the WNO cast.^[17] Although it is not uncommon for opera to mix different national music styles when portraying clashes between cultures, Tornrak stands out because both Inuit music and its singing techniques are foreign to the Western musical tradition.^[1]

Reception

The North American performances won the 1991 National Opera Association Award^[18] and the Best New Opera award from Opera America.^[19] The production team, led by Mike Ashman, won praise for its creativity with the limited resources available.^[20]

Reviewing the Welsh premiere, Rodney Milnes described Tornrak as "[a]n absorbing, thought-provoking and very approachable new opera" and as more successful than Metcalf's first opera The Journey. Milnes particularly praises the economy of writing in both the libretto and the score.^[21] Hugh Canning wrote of "a new opera which works on its own terms".^[22] Both these critics felt that the arctic scenes were the more successful. Paul Griffiths was more reserved about the "pleasant, straightforward fable", finding the vocal lines uninteresting except for the throat-singing but being happier with the orchestral sound.^[23]

Synopsis

References