Baby Kintyre is an episodic opera in the works for CBC Radio. Burry had always thought that the genres of radio serial and opera would work well together, it was just a question of finding the right story. Fortunately, that story was unearthed in the summer of 2007 as CBC investigators Mary Wiens and John Nicol brought an enthralled listening audience the tale of a mummified baby found in the floorboards of an East Toronto home. Further investigation to uncover the origins of the child, now known as "Baby Kintyre" revealed a cast of characters straight from a mystery novel: the glamourous vamp, the mysterious houseguest, the prudish and suicidal wife, the adulterous husband and the simple little girl whose bedroom floor became the resting place of a horrible secret. Set against a backdrop of 1920's Toronto, the radio opera serial Baby Kintyre will not only open larger audiences to the operatic form, but also offer an exciting and innovative new way for the CBC to illuminate and enrich the coverage of current events. The opera was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with an anticipated air date in 2009.
More on the CBC coverage of this story
This grown-up fairy tale opera was commissioned by Rising Tide Theatre in Newfoundland and will premiere at the Trinity Summer Festival in July 2009. This opera also represents the latest effort by the composer, to bring new opera to Newfoundland. The piece relates an episode from the journal of Richard Whitbourne who had been tasked with writing a text to encourage new settlers to come to the colony. The final paragraph refers to an encounter with what he believes is a mermaid, and this is the jumping off point of the opera. The paragraph is as follows...
"Now also I will not omit to relate some thing of a strange Creature, which I first saw there in the yeere 1610, in a morning early, as I was standing by the water side, in the Harbour of Saint Iohns, which very swiftly came swimming towards mee, looking cheerfully, as it had been a woman: by the face, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, eares, necke, and forehead, it seemed to bee so beautifull, and in those parts so well proportioned, hauing round about vpon the head, all blew strakes, resembling hayre, downe to the Necke, (but certainly it was no haire), yet I beheld it long, and another of my company also yet liuing, that was not then farre from mee, saw the same comming so swiftly towards me: at which I stepped backe; for it was come within the length of a long Pike. Which when this strange Creature saw, that I went from it, it presently thereupon diued a little vnder water, and did swim towards the place before I landed; whereby I beheld the shoulders & back down to the middle, to be so square, white and smooth as the backe of a man; and from the middle to the hinder part, it was poynting in pro-portion something like a broad hooked Arrow: how it was proportioned in the forepart from the necke and shoulders, I could not well discerne; but it came shortly after, to a Boat in the same Harbour (wherein one William Hawkridge then my seruant was,) that hath been since a Captaine in a Ship to the East Indies, and is lately there so imployed againe by Sir Thomas Smith, in the like voyage; and the same Creature did put both his hands vpon the side of the Boat, and did striue much to come in to him, and diuers then in the same Boat; whereat they were afraid, and one of them strucke it a full blow on the head, whereby it fell off from them: and afterwards it came to two other Boates in the said Harbour, where they lay by the shore: the men in them, for feare fled to land. This (I suppose) was a Marmaid. Now because diuers haue writ much of Maremaids, I haue presumed to relate what is most certaine, of such a strange Creature that was thus then seene at New-found-land, whether it were a Maremaid or no, I know not; I leaue it for others to iudge."
Following a successful run of Burry's opera The Brothers Grimm, Ottawa's Opera Lyra commissioned Burry to create a new opera for young people in the same mould. The musical nature of the fairy tale makes it perfect for operatic treatment. Workshops are planned for the opera in October, 2008 and March 2009 with a fall 2009 premiere anticipated.
The Bremen Town Musicians is also being conceived as a sister piece to The Brothers Grimm and the two works could be performed as a complete evening of opera.
The Mummer's Masque is a new project between Toronto Masque Theatre and composer/librettist Dean Burry. Having grown up in Newfoundland and participated in mummering as a child, the composer is creating an exciting dramatic work based on these folk traditions. In a young country, such as Canada, it is sometimes hard to find cultural activities with such a long and far-reaching history.
The Mummer's Masque will be a contemporary interpretation of the mummering tradition in Canada and worldwide, incorporating dance, music, drama, stage combat and puppetry. Mummer plays are considered one of the forerunners of the masque, which makes this pairing of company and composer an obvious choice. With a new libretto fashioned from various historic sources, the music shall be in a contemporary style. The production is being created to play in non-traditional venues and capitalize on the informal nature of the original material. The Mummer's Masque will premiere in Toronto in the Holiday Season of 2009.
Burry coincidentally obtained permission to compose an opera based on Canadian icon Pierre Berton's children story The Secret World of OG on the afternoon of his death. Berton considered OG his favourite book. The Secret World of OG will be premiered by the Canadian Children's Opera Chorus in Spring, 2010.
In 1982, renowned Canadian writer Roberstson Davies, a devoted fan of the opera, wrote a libretto for the CCOC entitled Children of the Moon. The music for the opera was never written. Burry obtained permission to compose the work from the Davies family in the Fall of 2004 and plans for a production are in the works. Children of the Moon was published in the Roberston Davies anthology Happy Alchemy, and excerpts of the score have been published in the Penguin Modern Classics Robertson Davies; Selected Plays and Robertson Davies: Selected Works On the Art of Writing.