Update, Friday, April 8: The Fountain School regrets the cancellation of A Northern Lights Dream. Please contact the HÂţ» Arts Centre Box Office for refunds.
It’s not every day that HÂţ» students have the chance to perform in the premiere of a new musical play.
This is precisely the opportunity provided by DalOpera’s new production of Michael Rose’s A Northern Lights Dream.
Rose’s show is a modern take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, set in the town of Shakespeare, Ontario. It follows 400-year-old trickster Robin Goodfellow as they try to impress the goddess Aurora by meddling in the love lives of the local townspeople.
If you are unfamiliar with opera, don’t let the genre scare you off. A Northern Lights Dream’s beautiful songs are in English, and it is more akin to musical theatre than traditional operas like La bohème or The Marriage of Figaro.
The show will run for two nights (with different casts) on April 9 & 10 at 7:30pm. Masks are required for audience members.
Emily McInnis, Tory Martin, Charlotte Forknall, Charise Pohl.
Breaking new ground
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Preparing a brand-new piece comes with certain unique challenges. For one, the student actors were forced to learn their parts without their usual references available to them.
“With classical repertoire, there are often resources like piano accompaniment tracks or performance recordings that we can find in order to listen to what the full scale of the song sounds like,” says third-year vocal performance student Tory Martin. “With A Northern Lights Dream, we are the first people to sing this music, and for me personally, I found it challenging to learn my own vocal line with no point of reference to what the other singers and instruments were going to sound like.”
Luckily, the cast was able to seek help from the opera’s composer and librettist.
“When performing standard operatic repertoire and famous shows, there’s no opportunity to ask the composer about the show because they’re no longer around,” says Charlotte Forknall, a fourth-year Bachelor of Music student with a concentration in Voice Performance who plays Robin Goodfellow. She found that being able to bring questions about the music to Rose was “so useful” for her process.
Emma Thornton Ockrant, Chloe Matamoros, Emily McInnis, Chloe Dionne, Sam Fullerton, Ryan Rafuse.
With these challenges also came some wonderful opportunities. Just as there was no reference material for what the music should sound like, there were also no built-in expectations around characterization. According to Charlotte, this gave the actors complete freedom to make their own choices about how they wanted to play their roles.
“My experience with this show and this role very much felt like I was creating the character of Robin out of thin air, which I have loved. Everything I’ve done to shape this character has come from my instincts, my chats with Michael, and guidance from our director, Neil. I have really enjoyed building this character and figuring out who Robin is on my own terms.”
A change of plans
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The production first began to take shape all the way back in August, when the actors virtually auditioned for Rose and their musical director. Most of the roles were cast before the school year even began, and the rest were quickly filled in September. The original goal was to mount A Northern Lights Dream in February.
Unfortunately, the Omicron variant brought increased restrictions that made this goal impossible. One of the biggest obstacles was a rule that there could be no choirs or congregational singing. DalOpera was forced to adapt, and the students rehearsed and performed a simplified version in January and early February. While the team hoped that they would be able to perform the show for audiences when restrictions ease, it was unclear what form that performance would take.
Chloe Dionne and Ryan Rafuse.
Despite the stress of the ever-evolving plan, the cast managed to keep their spirits up and power through. Martin believes that her strength came from the people she worked with.
“Honestly, I am so grateful for the cast and crew that we had for this show, as they are what helped me stay positive. Everyone wanted so badly for this show to happen, and that helped rehearsals go well, despite all of the changes and bumps in the road along the way. Some of my closest friends in the program are also in this production, and I think we were all just so happy to be on stage together again,” she says.
Charlotte stayed motivated by focusing on her long-term aspirations to pursue opera professionally. Plus, she had some help from an unexpected source: her mother.
“I owe a thank you to my mom for running lines with me almost every day over Facetime,” she says. “This was so helpful as we had minimal dialogue rehearsals due to limited time and changing restrictions. Having someone who would sit on Facetime with me for an hour every evening made it so much easier for me to consistently work on the show – and have a break from rehearsing and practicing alone in my room!”
Charise Pohl, Emily McInnis, Tory Martin.
The show must go on
After all of the ups and downs, it is now finally time for the cast to share their hard work with theatregoers.
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“I am ecstatic [to perform this show for audiences],” says Charlotte. “I can’t wait for the cast to share all this work with other people. This will be my first staged show in front of an audience since February 2020. I have been itching to get back onstage ever since and I’m so thankful we have the opportunity to do so.”
Charlotte Forknall
Ultimately, Tory is most excited to introduce the magic of A Northern Lights Dream to newcomers.
“This show means so much to me and I am truly so grateful to be able to perform it for an audience. I think this is one of those shows that is just so special and has a lot of beautiful moments for each character. It's so easy for the audience to fall in love with the characters, and I hope it comes across that we are all having so much fun with the piece. Even just thinking about walking out on stage to see a full audience is filling my heart with joy, and I know it will feel even better when it's actually happening in real time.”
Javier Mullally
Tickets $15/10 are on sale now from the HÂţ» Arts Centre Box Office. Tel: 902.494.3820/1.800.874.1669 or purchase online at .