10 DAYS IN A MADHOUSE Will Make Canadian Premiere at Luminato Festival

Composer Rene Orth's award-winning opera 10 Days in a Madhouse will receive its Canadian premiere at the Luminato Festival, co-presented by Tapestry Opera and the Canadian Opera Company. 

Experimental and psychologically compelling, this opera is inspired by the true story of journalist Nellie Bly, who in 1887 feigned insanity to expose the brutal realities of Blackwell's Asylum in New York. Bly's experience at the asylum revealed how women's poverty, race, and grief were often misinterpreted as madness. Through her immersive, hands-on approach to reporting, she became a celebrated journalist and helped shape what is now known as investigative journalism. With a libretto by celebrated Canadian writer Hannah Moscovitch and an orchestral score by Orth, the opera follows Bly's investigative journey under the vivid and heartbreakingly nuanced direction of Joanna Settle. 

Canadian conductor and Music Director Sandra Horst conducts a dynamic score that blends electronic and acoustic elements to create a sense of tension that mirrors the drama on stage. The cast is led by sopranos Mireille Asselin and Lauren Pearl, mezzo-soprano Taylor-Alexis DuPont, and baritone Jorell Williams, supported by a chorus of nine singers.

Orth describes 10 Days in a Madhouse as “a story that needed to be told as an opera,” discovering in Bly's history several of her most passionate artistic interests, including “strong female characters, social justice,” and “women conversing about topics other than men.” An opera is woven from the traumas, injustices, and fierce individuality that define these women, as Orth explores their psychological space through music.

Although the world has changed since the 1887 publication of 10 Days in a Madhouse – and even since the opera's conception, through transformative experiences including the pandemic – Orth takes the view that many of the social injustices Bly exposed remain relevant today, reflecting that “dismissive attitudes and bias towards women patients in the medical field, the mistreatment of immigrants and the poor, the lack of support for mental health, etc… are all still very much the same… even 136 years later.”

To highlight the contemporary relevance of these themes, Orth has integrated diverse musical styles throughout the score, considering what the modern equivalent of a 19th-century waltz might sound like, or how hymns and songs from that period might be reimagined in a contemporary context. This melding of styles and eras engages audiences in an unpredictable sonic universe that mirrors the unsettling psychology of Bly's story and its characters. Distinct instrumentation is used to reflect fluctuating sanity and dueling realities, with an intimate chamber orchestra sound depicting the “normal” reality seen by most, while an electronic sound world of amplification, live vocal effects, sound design, and fixed electronic clips represents “madness,” contrasting starkly while leaving room for “gray areas” between sanity and insanity that propel the suspense and unpredictability embedded in the work. The supporting women's chorus takes on both traditional and experimental roles, sometimes lending their voices as “instruments” in the orchestra – in Orth's words, “weaving their sounds into soundscapes, blurring the lines between acoustic and electronic sound worlds, between sanity and madness, acting as a lasting haunt one might have after experiencing time inside an abusive asylum.”