The Vancouver Opera will be inaugurating the 2010/2011 season with a newly commissioned work.Lillian Alling. The spectacular World Premiere of the work takes place October 16, 2010 as part of the ongoing Golden Anniversary celebrations of the Vancouver Opera. There will be three other performances running on the October 19th, 21st, and 23rd. Creating the two principal roles of Irene and Lillian will be the sensational mezzo soprano Miss Judith Forst as Irene, and Miss Irene Frederique as Lillian. The work is a joint effort of Canadian composer John Estacio, and the playwright John Murrell. The new work will be under the baton of the hot young, in demand conductor Mr. Jacques Lacombe.

Composer John Estacio with playwright John Murrell.

At the bottom of this article, you will find a rather excellent use of Google maps which must be checked out. COMMANDOpera will say no more, other than ‘DO IT!’ Relatedly, go to YouTube and keyboard in the words ‘Lillian Alling’. It is sincerely a weird feeling to do so, find nothing whatsoever, only to know in a year the page will be loaded with dozens of direct uploads. Its all so ultra cool when the Vancouver Opera is involved.

The plot to Lillian Alling is sublime and follows in this rough outline:

Act One
The opera opens in the interior of BC. It’s 1980 and Irene is packing up her beloved cabin grudgingly to move to the city for better care. As she bids goodbye to her familiar surroundings, her son Jimmy discovers an old-fashioned spinning top — a top that puts into motion the story of a woman Irene once knew: the story of Lillian Alling, a young woman from Russia who sets off to find her husband, Jozèf, who had emigrated to America ahead of her.

Suddenly we are swept into the New York of the 1920s.

Lillian arrives in Brooklyn, as did so many immigrants, only to discover that Jozèf has left for better prospects in the farmland of North Dakota. Having no money, she finds a map at the New York Public Library and decides she will walk to meet him. But as she pursues Jozèf, he is always one step ahead of her: across the vast prairies to the west coast and, ultimately, northward along BC’s Telegraph Trail. The men she encounters along the way document her path: the golden-haired Norwegian farmer’s son Kristian; gnarly Constable Wyman who throws her in the Oakalla Prison Farm; spirited telegraphers Bill and Charlie, Sam and the determined Scotty Macdonald, who reports Lillian to Constable Wyman.

Scotty Macdonald…but that’s Jimmy’s father! As present day collides with the past, the spinning top throws Jimmy’s own history into question.

Act Two
The act opens in spring of 1928. Lillian has been released from custody and, intent on resuming her journey, has taken a job in a downtown Vancouver café. When Scotty Macdonald walks in one day, Lillian is shocked. As Scotty explains that he betrayed her in order to save her from death in the wilds, he wins Lillian’s forgiveness and eventually earns her love. But Lillian is bound to Jozèf through a promise — her life is bound to his life, not by love but by hate. As Scotty learns Lillian’s secret and her truth, he agrees to help her make the journey to Telegraph Creek.

In love with Scotty, Lillian can’t bear to involve him in her desperate plan and so she sets out alone to tackle the wilderness, rocky terrain and treacherous river crossings. With Scotty in hot pursuit, they arrive simultaneously in a forest clearing to confront Jozèf. It is in the Canadian wilderness that they will resolve Lillian’s past and begin Irene’s future.

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