Kendra Harder

Orpheus & Eurydice: Nox

2021-22 | In Progress

Libretto by Michelle K. Telford
Music by Kendra Harder

Orpheus & Eurydice: Nox is Harder & Telford's third operatic collaboration together, and their first foray into a serious opera.

Nox is a queer retelling of the Orpheus myth, lifting up the voices of queer women, and shining a light on love. Telford's reimagined story takes place in a gay bar called Elysium and casts protagonists Orpheus and Eurydice as queer women. Persephone, an employee at the bar, is stalked by Hades, a scorned ex. Nox also explores how homophobia and misogyny play out as violence against women in the 2SLGBTQ+ community. This work was inspired as tribute to those lost in the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting.

Nox is being scored for:

Orpheus (she/hers) - contralto/low treble*
Eurydice (she/they) - soprano
Persephone (she/hers) - coloratura mezzo-soprano
Hades (he/his) - bass-baritone
Piano, violin

*Orpheus is being composed as a flex role in order to make the role more accessible to trans opera singers

Thanks to Canada Council for the Arts, Cori Ellison is joining the team as dramaturg. Cori's years of experience in the world of opera and her passionate and bubbly person are a welcome addition to our team.

The libretto of Nox has been sponsored by SK Arts, and the music of Nox has been sponsored by Canada Council for the Arts and by my generous supporters through my crowdfunding initiative on Ko-Fi. Thank you from the bottom of our prairie hearts for supporting this opera!

If you would like to help support the creation of this 2SLGBTQ+ opera, please visit ko-fi.com/kendrahardercomposition for more details.

Nox in development

Thanks to the support of Musique 3 Femmes, and the Dan School of Drama and Music, Nox had a libretto-reading workshop in May 2021. Over Zoom we got to hear Michelle's words come to life for the first time by the amazing reading of performers from the university. This was followed by a dramatury session lead by Cori Ellison, who lead us through questions asking about what was impactful, striking, or not quite there yet.

Skip ahead to February 2022 and yet again, Musique 3 Femmes is championing the development of our work (what an amazing group of women!!)! Our original plan was to have a weekend-long music workshop of the first act with the Music Department at the University of Saskatchewan lead by M3F. Alas, COVID threw a wrench in those plans. But because the students and alum had already been so hard at work on learning the music, Garry & Kathy Gable invited me to campus, and Cori to Zoom, to hear everyone's work. What an absolutely fabulous thing to hear this opera start to come to life!

A week after this workshop, the creative team of Nox joined by Jennifer Szeto (M3F) hosted a Fine Arts Recital & Lecture Series (FARLS) through the University of Saskatchewan called "Opera, as in: Writing One," where Michelle & I talked about our creative work together and the development of Nox, and we heard about Jenn's work through M3F. Since the original plan was to have fully workshopped music of Nox, and that plan was thwarted, we shared a little bit of our first collab with Jenn, "Take it to Tumblr" from Book of Faces.

Nox - Acts I & II - sponsored by Musique 3 Femmes and Opera 5, Nox in its most recent form was workshopped with students and alumni of the University of Saskatchewan. Expertly music directed and coached by Kathy Gable, with light staging by Garry Gable, we ran the entire opera. I also got to try my hand at running a Liz Lerman critique, which opened up amazing dialogue about the characters and the story arc. Every student was so passionate about the work, and they have all challenged me in ways to make this opera even better! Thank you to all.