A forgotten music icon gets the spotlight

Three performers embody the late contralto Portia White in the world premiere of 'Aportia Chryptych'

- JOSHUA CHONG

This spring, Toronto's performing arts scene has been defined by works reappraising historical figures, both popular and obscure.

In April, Soulpepper and Outside the March brought us "A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney," playwright Lucas Hnath's damning critique of the iconic American animator. Last month, Tarragon Theatre debuted "Come Home The Legend of Daddy Hall," a beautiful homage to a distinguished Canadian supercentenarian. And now, the Canadian Opera Company (COC) is reviving the memory of a late, great contralto with "Aportia Chryptych: A Black Opera for Portia White," a world premiere by HAUI and Sean Mayes that ran from Friday to Sunday at the Canadian Opera Company Theatre.

All three pieces aim to shine a new light on these complicated individuals who have been, if not forgotten, then misremembered by history. But the COC's new opera certainly feels like it's the most sweeping and ambitious of the trio: a nearly three-hour, two-act work that blends fact, fiction and an array of musical genres into a decades-spanning tale.

Sonically inventive, it's a reassessment of White's legacy as complex as the Canadian singer herself. And even if the opera doesn't cohere, fractured instead by too many compelling ideas, it remains an admirable achievement and a solid retrospective of her life.