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A tasty musical triffle!
Fab, feisty, original and fall-down funny Unique, topical and relevant......full of humour and compassion The music has a vital freshness, and the writing is sharp and irreverent - This romantic comic opera has been performed at the Rhubarb and the Summerworks Festival in Toronto. Our European debut, directed by Joel Ivany, featuring tenor Keith Klassen and baritone Paul White
In 2004, knotty together, a naughty and gay opera in 3 short acts, started its life as a four minute short at Tapestry New Opera Works' Composer-Librettist Laboratory - the annual "boot camp" for composers and writers to develop their collaborative skills in the music theatre/opera art form. The short was subsequently expanded to 30 minutes for the 2005 Buddies in Bad Times Theatre' Rhubarb Festival. The version we are presenting here is the 2006 Summerworks Theatre Festival version with a reduced "orchestra". The full score calls for violin, cello and piano. Unbashfully tuneful, knotty together is part comedy, part opera with a refreshingly contemporary story. Written in everyone's everyday language, knotty together attempts to breath new life into the age-old art form of opera by infusing it with contemporary issues more often explored in plays and musicals, and rarely seen on opera stages. Despite the increased representation of queer culture in the mainstream media, and the stereotypical presumption of how gay people love the art form, there is conspicuously a lack of operas with gay protagonists. knotty together is an attempt to uphold the stereotype by filling that void. Boy meets boy and so it goes.....Xanford, dressed in the uniform of a delivery man, comes to the door of Jimmy, and the fun begins. This comedic and touching love story takes the audience on a whirlwind tour of the high drama of contemporary queerdom. Written just before the approval of the Civil Marriage Act in Canada, this romantic comedy naturally references this galvanizing point in queer politics - our community's continuous fight for legalization of same sex marriage all over the world. Our approach to the subject matter is cheeky, humourous and satirical (some may even say subversive), inviting an honest discussion which reflects the heartbeat of contemporary society, here and beyond, queer and straight. Ultimately, knotty together strives to relay a universal message of love, one that is timeless and transcends community borders. So although our love story was originally set in Toronto's gay neighbourhood of Church and Wellesley streets, the joy, the love, the struggles and the dilemma the characters experience are in fact the same for people anywhere, regardless of where they eat, breathe and shop.
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