A high-C’s adventure Opera company boards the Nonsuch for maiden voyage By: Alan Small Posted: 3:39 PM CDT Tuesday, Sep. 19, 2023 Last Modified: 3:56 PM CDT Tuesday, Sep. 19, 2023 Updates

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Countless visitors have sung the praises of the Nonsuch, the replica of the 17th-century fur-trading ship that has been the Manitoba Museum’s centrepiece since it docked there in 1974.

None of them have sounded quite like its latest group of costumed guests however.

Manitoba Underground Opera and its cast of pirates have taken over the vessel for four sold-out performances of The Corsair, which sets sail Wednesday and continues until Saturday at the Nonsuch Gallery, where the dry-docked ketch resides.

“It’s really fun. I can’t imagine a set on a stage being as immersive as the Nonsuch,” says soprano Janice Marple, who plays Gulnara in The Corsair and is the company’s administrative director.

“It just lends so much realism and excitement to actually be on that ship. There’s something so cool when you enter via a gangplank and we dip inside the captain’s hold that’s underneath the shop from time to time. It’s like nothing else I’ve experienced as a singer.”

The production of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera has a 12-member cast, with mezzo-soprano Simran Claire starring as Corrado, soprano Ashley Boychuk as Medora, and baritone Stephen Haiko-Pena as Skelton, Corrado’s rival. An eight-member chorus is also part of the 90-minute production (with intermission).

A pianist, violinist and cello accompany the singers, which can create a traffic jam on the deck of the Nonsuch.

The museum allows only 10 people on the ship at a time, so stage director Sawyer Craig has had to act like a ship’s captain, ordering her crew of singers to go fore and aft, port and starboard during rehearsals, as well as making sure their performances are ship-shape.

“The term Sawyer uses is to drive defensively. Watch out for the performers around you. Try to make sure you’re not cutting anyone off from their path they need to go on,” Marple says.

The company puts Nonsuch’s sails to use as well, projecting English surtitles to help the 75-member audience follow along with Verdi’s Italian-language libretto. Murals on the gallery’s walls help Marple focus on the blue skies of the character’s home during one of her arias, she says.

“It’s really fun. I can’t imagine a set on a stage being as immersive as the Nonsuch.”–Janice Marple

Performing in the unorthodox milieu is nothing new for the Manitoba Underground Opera.

It produced Handel’s French-language opera Castor et Pollux beside the St. Boniface Cathedral in August, and projected scenes from ancient Greek and Roman times onto the remaining wall of the original building to match the opera’s mythical setting.

It performed a gender-bending rendition of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in 2022 at Club 200, downtown’s longtime LGBTTQ+-friendly bar.

The Manitoba Underground Opera isn’t the first arts company to use the Nonsuch as a stage. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra performed on the ship in July 2018, coinciding with the reopening of the restored gallery and the 350th anniversary of the voyage of the original Nonsuch from Deptford, England, to Hudson Bay in 1668.

Brendan McKeen, the company’s executive director, has been trying to hold The Corsair on the Nonsuch for a while, and Manitoba Underground Opera was able to come to an agreement with the Manitoba Museum last year for the production.

“(The museum) has been wonderful to deal with,” Marple says. “If you’re not involved in opera, some of the things we do can probably seem a little strange. They’ve been so open-minded and accommodating.”

One Nonsuch rule remains in place. No water is allowed on board for the singers to cool their vocal cords.

The Corsair is a pirate’s tale that revolves around Corrado, a chief corsair or pirate captain, and lover Medora. Verdi originally wrote Corrado to be a male tenor lead, but Manitoba Underground Opera isn’t the first to adapt operas to female performers.

“The Nonsuch itself was not originally a pirate ship but we’re blurring the lines a little bit, pretending that it is,” Marple says.

This week’s production rounds out Manitoba Underground Opera’s Odyssey 2023 schedule, which included Castor et Pollux, The Mansplaining Division, a new commissioned opera that was featured in May at the Pyramid Cabaret, and Bremen Town Musicians, a family-focused touring production performed before more than 1,000 children and parents across the province in July and August.

Manitoba Underground Opera began in 2008 and held its shows as a festival in the past. Audiences rewarded the company this year when it decided to hold its shows over the entire summer.

“This was our first year doing a season format,” Marple says. “We’ve sold out every performance this season, which is a first for us, and the response has been great.

“It’s obviously nice to have one show at a time to focus on and really do our best work.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall