John Burge

Premiere: January 11-22, 2017 at the Isabel Bader Performing Arts Centre, Kingston, ON.

Synopsis and Setting: Mata Hari (1876-1917) was renowned as an exotic dancer and courtesan throughout Europe in the early 20th century.  Her conviction and execution by France on charges of spying for Germany during World War I is but one of many aspects of her life that add to her ongoing notoriety.  This “performance” takes place on October 14th, 1917, the night before Mata Hari faces the firing squad.  The setting is, nominally, a room within the Saint Lazare Prison in Paris, where prisoners, the Sisters of Marie-Joseph and other prison staff are gathered.  There is a screen onstage (although it is not strictly necessary until the second act) and a piano.  The pianist, also acting the role of Dr. Bizard, comes out, sits down at the keyboard and prepares the audience for the upcoming performance.  Mata Hari, dressed conservatively, eventually enters and through song and narrative, tells her side of the story.

Development and Background:  John Burge and Craig Walker, colleagues at Queen's University in the recently renamed Dan School of Drama and Music, began discussing this project in 2012.  With the support of a grant from the Queen’s University Fund for Support of Artistic Projects, they held a two-day workshop of Act One in the December 2014 with soprano, Patricia O’Callaghan, at Queen’s University.  A project grant from the City of Kingston Arts Fund supported a second workshop with Patricia O’Callaghan in August 2015, again at Queen’s, that culminated in a public reading of the complete work with John Burge at the piano.  A final workshop took place in July 2016 with pianist Gregory Oh joining Patricia in preparation of the January 2017 premiere at Kingston’s Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts.

John Burge [Music]: Canadian composer John Burge (b. 1961) has written a large body of instrumental, vocal and choral music including symphonies, concertos, chamber music, masses, and art songs.  One of his own personal highlights was the completion of his first chamber opera, The Auction, commissioned and premiered by the Westben Summer Music Festival in Campbellford, Ontario, 2012 (libretto by Eugene Benson).  It was while working on this opera that John approached Craig with the idea of a creating a one-woman show that would have a music theatre or cabaret character.  The material provided by Craig for One Last Night with Mata Hari, not only gave John wonderfully dramatic and emotional moments to capture in music, but also enabled him to draw upon the harmonic language of composers from both the French Impressionism and late German Romantic traditions but always combined in a way that echoes the style of Broadway musical theatre.

Craig Walker [Book and Lyrics]: Craig Walker has written a number of works for the stage, most of which were produced by Theatre Kingston while he was Artistic Director of that company in the years 1997 through 2007. These include an adaptation of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, which included combination of traditional and original songs, and a musical, Chantecler, for which he wrote music, book and lyrics as well as adaptations of Brecht, Ibsen and Chekhov.  He has also worked as a professional director and director at many theatres.  Craig eagerly seized opportunity to collaborate with John Burge on One Last Night With Mata Hari: her biography is arguably one of the central myths of modernism and John’s profound grasp of all the musical idioms associated with the modernist period meant that the subject could beget a richly suggestive piece of music drama.

Nine-Minute Trailer: Click on the the image below to see a nine-minute trailer of highlights from the premiere featuring Patricia O'Callaghan and Gregory Oh.

Mata Hari - Trailer/Preview from Josh Lyon on Vimeo.