This study is an analysis of three English Canadian operas, Beatrice Chancy (composed by James Rolfe with a libretto by George Elliott Clarke), Elsewhereless (composed by Rodney Shaman with a libretto by Atom Egoyan), and Louis Riel (composed by Harry Somers with a libretto by Mavor Moore), that place Canadian history and Canadian historical fictions on the lyric stage. All three operas engage variously with race, gender, sexuality, power, and the political formation of the state. The central concern of this study is the representation through music of difference and race in Louis Riel, Elsewhereless, and Beatrice Chancy. The analysis considers music as a medium of representation and therefore an equal participant, with the libretto and the mise en scine, in creating subtle delineations of character, relationships, and complex interchanges with the world outside the work. In particular, through the analysis of music, narrative, and operatic performance, the study will consider how race is represented in these operas. Independent but affiliated studies on modern opera and the theoretical context of cultural musicology, and a longitudinal consideration of the representation of race and racism in historical operas, will form a theoretical and comparative historical background to the analysis of the operas. This study intends to contribute to the field of opera studies by focusing on contemporary Canadian operas.

Canada's continued forgetfulness concerning slavery here, and the nation-state's attempts to record only Canada's role as a place of sanctuary for escaping African-Americans, is part of the story of absenting blackness from its history. Rinaldo Walcott The fact that people of African descent have had a presence in Canada for over four hundred years is not well known within the Canadian mainstream. The fact that slavery existed as an institution in Canada is another fact that is not well known. Within the Canadian mainstream writing of African-Canadian history, Blacks most often appear in historical narratives around the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, as American fugitives or refugees—either as escaping slaves or British Loyalists. Through the representative writing of the "the Black refugee," Canada is often constructed as a "Promised Land," a sanctuary or safe haven for Blacks, a place of refuge and redemption that does not speak to the complex history of slavery that existed well before the American exodus. Many Black Canadian writers and scholars argue that there is a price to be paid for this kind of representation. First, the absence of people of African descent in Canadian historical narratives, prior to the coming o f the American refugees, ignores the long presence of Blacks in Canada and the contributions that Blacks have made in the development of Canada. Second, in focusing on the American Loyalists and refugee slaves, Canadian writers and historians often construct Black Canadians as a homogenous, genderless group, ignoring the diversity within Canada's Black population and, in particular, the concerns of Black women. Finally, the mainstream representation of Canada as a 'safe haven' proves problematic for any critical discussion of racism in contemporary Canadian society, for notions of "Canada the good" and "America the evil" that arose from those crossings North still penetrate the Canadian mainstream today. This autobiocritical exploration examines the representation of the haven and offers alternative readings to contemporary mainstream writings of African-Canadian history. In part one, I track the appearance of Black Canadians, over the past fifty years, from 1949 to 2001, in a survey of mainstream and scholarly texts. Using the results of this survey, which does not see the appearance of Blacks in Canada until 1977, I examine how mainstream texts might use the works of Black writers to offer more critical and complex histories of Black Canadians and, in particular, Black women. In part two, I take up an analysis of George Elliott Clarke's Beatrice Chancy. Seen as a counter-narrative to mainstream writings of African-Canadian history, Clarke's work, which takes up the subject of slavery in early-nineteenth century Nova Scotia, presents an/Other kind of Loyalist story, one with a Black woman at its centre. In this discussion I examine how Clarke's poetic work subverts the national narrative, as he speaks to the diversity within blackness and the complexities in defining racial identities.

Canada's continued forgetfulness concerning slavery here, and the nation-state's attempts to record only Canada's role as a place of sanctuary for escaping African-Americans, is part of the story of absenting blackness from its history. Rinaldo Walcott The fact that people of African descent have had a presence in Canada for over four hundred years is not well known within the Canadian mainstream. The fact that slavery existed as an institution in Canada is another fact that is not well known. Within the Canadian mainstream writing of African-Canadian history, Blacks most often appear in historical narratives around the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, as American fugitives or refugees—either as escaping slaves or British Loyalists. Through the representative writing of the "the Black refugee," Canada is often constructed as a "Promised Land," a sanctuary or safe haven for Blacks, a place of refuge and redemption that does not speak to the complex history of slavery that existed well before the American exodus. Many Black Canadian writers and scholars argue that there is a price to be paid for this kind of representation. First, the absence of people of African descent in Canadian historical narratives, prior to the coming o f the American refugees, ignores the long presence of Blacks in Canada and the contributions that Blacks have made in the development of Canada. Second, in focusing on the American Loyalists and refugee slaves, Canadian writers and historians often construct Black Canadians as a homogenous, genderless group, ignoring the diversity within Canada's Black population and, in particular, the concerns of Black women. Finally, the mainstream representation of Canada as a 'safe haven' proves problematic for any critical discussion of racism in contemporary Canadian society, for notions of "Canada the good" and "America the evil" that arose from those crossings North still penetrate the Canadian mainstream today. This autobiocritical exploration examines the representation of the haven and offers alternative readings to contemporary mainstream writings of African-Canadian history. In part one, I track the appearance of Black Canadians, over the past fifty years, from 1949 to 2001, in a survey of mainstream and scholarly texts. Using the results of this survey, which does not see the appearance of Blacks in Canada until 1977, I examine how mainstream texts might use the works of Black writers to offer more critical and complex histories of Black Canadians and, in particular, Black women. In part two, I take up an analysis of George Elliott Clarke's Beatrice Chancy. Seen as a counter-narrative to mainstream writings of African-Canadian history, Clarke's work, which takes up the subject of slavery in early-nineteenth century Nova Scotia, presents an/Other kind of Loyalist story, one with a Black woman at its centre. In this discussion I examine how Clarke's poetic work subverts the national narrative, as he speaks to the diversity within blackness and the complexities in defining racial identities. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

<p>This study focuses on two incarnations of the Cenci legend: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1819 verse drama <em>The Cenci</em> and George Elliott Clarke and James Rolfe’s 1998 chamber opera <em>Beatrice Chancy</em>. Shelley composed <em>The Cenci</em> after he discovered an Italian manuscript recounting the life of Beatrice Cenci who, after being raped by her father, plotted the murder of the debauched patriarch and was subsequently executed for parricide. Nearly two centuries later, Clarke and Rolfe created <em>Beatrice Chancy</em>, an Africadianized adaptation of the Cenci legend inspired by Shelley’s play. This study investigates they way in which multiple performance genres re-embody history in order to contest collective memory and reconfigure concepts of nationhood and citizenship. It examines the principles of nineteenth-century closet drama and the way in which Shelley's play questions systems of despotic, patriarchal power by raising issues of speech and silence, public and private. This is followed by a consideration of how Clarke and Rolfe's transcultural adaptation uncovers similar issues in Canadian history, where discourses of domestic abuse come to reflect public constructs of citizenship. Particularly this study examines how, through the immediacy of operatic performance and the powerful voice of the diva, <em>Beatrice Chancy</em> contests Canada’s systematic silencing of a violent history of slavery and oppression.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)