OPERA CANADA
SUMMER 2002

Mezzo-soprano Fides Krucker is one of Canada's leading contemporary music divas, and her one-woman show featured the world premiere of the compelling, interdisciplinary, electro acoustic work The Girl With No Door On Her Mouth, with a score by Wende Bartley and text culled by Krucker from the writings of poet Anne Carson. The thrust of the piece was the emancipation of a woman as a creative being, with her own voice that did not have to be legitimized by a male patriarchy. Bartley's atmospheric tape contained both evocative sound effects and ravishing, over-layered vocal and musical tracks, and her fragmentary and repeated themes dovetailed like a cinematic companion to Krucker's extraordinary sung and spoken performance. Kudos to Philip Beesley and Dereck Revington for their imaginative set and lighting design and co-director Mark Christmann, who with Krucker, mounted an imaginative, many-mooded production.