Make space for a new kind of ‘Mozart’s Requiem,’ an opera project with an indie made-in-Toronto twist

Two powerhouse opera companies in Toronto have teamed up for the first time to produce a radical new interpretation of a classic work.

Against the Grain Theatre (AtG), the up-and-coming indie opera collective behind last season’s acclaimed “Messiah/Complex,” has collaborated with the venerable Canadian Opera Company to present a filmed production of Mozart’s “Requiem,” streaming online for free beginning Saturday evening.

Though AtG was the COC’s inaugural company-in-residence from 2016 to 2019 — a program that provides independent opera companies with mentorship and dedicated administrative space — this production marks the first artistic collaboration between the two companies.

“Mozart’s “Requiem” honours and remembers those people who have passed during this time,” said Joel Ivany, director and AtG founder. “Every number in the news is an actual person and every death affected the family attached to those people.”

Ivany plucked the piece out of its traditional concert format and lightly staged it, moving the four soloists around the expansive Four Seasons Centre stage. He began planning this film with COC music director Johannes Debus approximately a year after the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Canada. Now, almost two years later — a time filled with loss and personal tragedy for many — it’s a particularly apt moment to perform Mozart’s meditative mass for the dead.

In some moments, the film cuts to scenes at the base of the Scarborough Bluffs, along the shoreline of Lake Ontario. The sounds of the waves washing ashore bookend the 55-minute work.

For Ivany, the waves are symbolic of the grieving process. “Sorrow and loss can feel like waves in how they can come to you at different times,” he said. “There’s also something so natural and edifying about the water, the trees and the outdoors, so it seemed like a natural fit to put the actors outdoors in that context.”

This is AtG’s third film produced during this pandemic era, and Ivany says the digital medium will be part of the company’s programming for the years to come.

“What we’ve been a fan of with film is how many more people you can reach,” he said. “Live theatre is incomparable, but with film, you also can get up close and just see more.”

Ivany has worked on Mozart’s “Requiem” before. In 2016, he directed a semi-staged production for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. For many of the soloists, the requiem is considered a staple of the classical concert repertoire.

But this “Requiem” is incredibly personal for all the artists involved.

Bass soloist Vartan Gabrielian suffered immeasurable loss over the past year. In November 2020, the Canadian-Armenian bass-baritone lost his father to COVID-19. Then, his “spiritual father” — an Armenian priest who introduced Gabrielian to classical music and paid for his lessons — succumbed to the disease. Shortly thereafter, his uncle in Los Angeles also caught the virus and died.

Now, he gets to honour their memories through this film.

Gabrielian, along with the three other soloists, were asked to share their stories of loss over the pandemic in a series of short videos. These recordings are interspersed between the requiem’s movements, offering the audience an insight into the people behind the music and how the past year has informed each of the soloists’ performance.

For Gabrielian, it was a painful, yet cathartic, process. “I lost people that were very dear to me because of COVID,” he said. “This project was kind of a way to help heal. We had to dive into a lexicon of emotions and life experiences, and try to bring that out.”

At the end of the piece, each of the performers — from the soloists, to the COC orchestra and chorus — write on a small placard the name of someone, or a group of people, who have passed away and to whom this performance is dedicated.

In one of the film’s most moving moments, the performers file into the auditorium and hang these placards over the backs of the seats — turning them into epitaphs of sorts and a symbol of the incredible losses over the past year.

Kwagiulth and Stó:lō First Nations mezzo-soprano soloist Marion Newman wrote “215+” on her sign, referencing the hundreds of children at residential schools who were found buried in unmarked graves this year.

The daughter of a residential school survivor, Newman and her three siblings were the first members of her father’s family who did not go to a residential school. Throughout the production days in late October, Newman was thinking about the thousands of children who never made it home from residential schools, and their families, who are only now beginning to find some closure.

“My dad remembers the older kids who were made to dig those graves,” said Newman, whose father attended St. Mary’s Indian Residential School in Mission, B.C. “So for me, that’s what I was thinking about.”

Newman hopes this film offers viewers a moment to reflect on the past months. “I hope it offers them a sense of comfort and an opportunity to contemplate and process some of what we’ve all been through,” she said.

“And mostly, I hope that people will be swept up by the beauty of the music and the intent that each of us brought to that — through meaning and care and love for those that we miss.”

“Requiem” will be streaming on-demand beginning Nov. 27. Tickets are available for free at www.atgtheatre.com or www.coc.ca