Tapestry at the Doras

Taylor Graham, librettist of Tapestry New Opera's Dora-nominated opera The Virgin Charlie, has written an interesting blog post about her experience learning the new opera creation process, the success of her first opera, and the night of the 2009 Dora Awards. An excerpt:

While Bill [Rowson] and I were talking about reasons we thought opera creates possibility I discovered that what the two of us needed was to create something large, something funny, something bigger than the both of us, and yet relateable, caring, sensitive as that is undoubtably key similarities in our personalities. From that discussion I began to create the world of Charlie, our main character and pitched the idea to Bill and with his approval to Tapestry. About a year later I was at the Enwave Centre standing up to bow as "The Virgin Charlie" came to a close.

The category of Oustanding New Opera/Musical (in which four operas produced by Tapestry had been nominated), was eventually won by Abigail Richardson and Marjorie Chan's Sanctuary Song.

(Via Inside The New Work Studio)

Image Credit: Xin Wang and Alvin Crawford from the 2008 Tapestry production of Sanctuary Song, as photographed by John Lauener.