Manitoba Underground Opera launched its 2026 season, “Greed’s Reckoning,” with the first of three productions driven by lustful themes of “power, love, money and control.”
Its Manitoba premiere of Sweat, penned in 2016 by Toronto-based composer Juliet Palmer based on Anna Chatterton’s libretto, also marked MUO’s Winnipeg Fringe Festival debut – introducing an art form that is often perceived as rarefied to new local audiences. Its seven-performance run at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s John Hirsch Mainstage also offered an invaluable, career-affirming opportunity for its nine-member cast to perform in a premier, 789-seat capacity house. Monday’s performance boasted a healthy attendance of both die-hard opera fans and curious “newbies,” many agape after experiencing the power of the voice (likely) for their first time.
This gripping, 65-minute a cappella chamber opera, first staged by New York City’s National Sawdust in 2016, received its Canadian premiere by Toronto-based, free-wheeling Bicycle Opera Project in August 2017; a same-titled film followed in 2023. Sweat plunges audience members into the brutal realities of the garment industry, where five generically titled Workers (sopranos Kris Cahatol, Karen Santos and Sonia Campbell; mezzo-sopranos Meghan Symon and Joanna Loepp Thiessen) are lorded over by their cruelly bullying Boss (baritone Jayden Fraser) and an equally domineering Overseer (soprano Amanda Smith).
The narrative, laced with potent themes of social consciousness and deteriorating labour rights, alternates between solos akin to soliloquies, in which individual workers share their respective hopes, fears and dreams, as well as a stream of closely knitted choruses where the ensemble shows its solidarity (or not) in the face of corporate greed.
Palmer has fashioned an intricate, imaginative score that mesmerizes, often featuring singers accompanying each other with rhythmic, “snip snap” ostinato patterns – even handclaps and foot stomps – evoking the numbing, mechanistic sound world of a claustrophobic sweatshop. This claustrophobic feeling is further heightened by dramatic lighting effects.
Photo Credit: Paul McKeen
Boss (Jayden Fraser) monitors the work of three of his employees: (left to right) Queen Hezumuryango, Kris Cahatol and Meghan Symon
When a newly arrived Union Organizer (mezzo-soprano Queen Hezumuryango) attempts to rally her co-workers, tensions flare and ultimately boil over, underpinned by pungent, ear-cleaning harmonies that become visceral, impeccably prepared by music director Shannon Hiebert. The Neighbour (soprano Carmen Harris), dreaming of a high fashion career, provides a counterfoil to Hezumuryango’s character, propelling the plot forward as she rails against organized labour groups while having an illicit affair with the Boss.
Stage director Melissa Langdon makes effective use of the larger stage area, defined by wheeled garment racks that also serve as a backdrop for the singers. The performers’ fearlessness is further displayed as they bravely deliver their complex, through-composed choruses from their knees for nearly the entire show; stitching and clipping “seams,” represented by two bolts of white netting passed between their hands. It’s particularly stirring when several workers break into their native tongues: Tagalog (Cahatol), Kirundi (Hezumuryango), German (Loepp Thiessen) and Spanish (Santos), adding further verisimilitude to the overall production.
The opera’s final moments chill to the bone, with the workers now locked into the factory to meet an inhumane production deadline. As a dishevelled Boss stumbles onstage from the theatre’s wing, declaring “I drank the day away,” and “I locked the door and left them in a steel trap,” only to mourn the loss of his profit margins in his next breath, the workers’s terror is palpable as the factory bursts into flames.
Kudos to this cast for their conviction in bringing this hellish scene – and opera – to life, as the workers gasp for air and wail, “Can’t breathe” like a keening cry from the depths. Their crumpling to the floor, with the netting that billowed around them like choking smoke now shrouding their bodies, their faces and their dreams for all eternity, punctuates this harrowing cautionary tale still so relevant in today’s world of “fast fashion” and blinkered commerce at any cost. As these modern-day heroines rise again like ghostly visages, they deliver one more powerful chorus, “One spark, and we are dust,” in solidarity – both in life and death.
Photo Credit: Paul McKeen
Union Organizer (Queen Hezumuryango) faces off against the Boss (Jayden Fraser) in Sweat
Opera Canada depends on the generous contributions of its supporters to bring readers outstanding, in-depth coverage of opera in Canada and beyond. Please consider subscribing or donating today.
