CD Review | Current/Clements: Missing

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Current/Clements: Missing

Caitlin Wood, Melody Courage, sopranos; Andrea Ludwig, Marion Newman, Michelle Lafferty, mezzo-sopranos; Asitha Tennekoon, tenor; Evan Korbut, baritone; Continuum Ensemble, Timothy Long, conductor

Bright Shiny Things, July 2025

Missing is an 80-minute opera about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls with a libretto by Marie Clements and music by Brian Current. It’s sung in English and Gitxsan and great care has been taken that the Gitxsan linguistic and cultural elements are accurate and appropriate.

The work has some history. It’s a West Coast Canadian-based project, as its Highway of Tears and Vancouver settings suggest, and the libretto was complete before Toronto-based Brian Current joined the project in 2017. The completed opera played in several locations in B.C. and the Prairies, always including special performances for affected families, but was not taken up by anybody in Central or Eastern Canada, though one might think the issue was timely enough! That’s about to change as this July it will be performed as part of Toronto Summer Music (July 24 at Koerner Hall) and, of course, with this release, there’s now the chance to at least hear the piece on record.

The story is intriguing. A settler girl, Ava, is involved in a bad car crash and while unconscious or semi-conscious she sees the murdered body of the Native Girl. Over the course of the opera their stories and identities and, I think, their spirits intertwine to the point of fusion. Along the way Ava, a law school student, meets Dr. Wilson, an Indigenous professor, who profoundly influences her to the point where she learns Gitxsan and marries her boyfriend, Devon, in a Gitxsan ceremony. The Native Girl appears at intervals and we are introduced to her mother and brother. Ava has a baby girl, which provides the catalyst for the final resolution and peace for the Native Girl. 

The opera is scored for an ensemble of violin, cello, flute, clarinet, piano and percussion which provides plenty of colour for music that seems to have been written primarily in support of the text. The piece is not in any sense trivial, nor trying too hard to be accessible, but it doesn’t have the rhythmical complexities of some of Current’s other work. The score is quite light-textured with elements of almost John Adams-like minimalism, but textures become much more dense at the high point of the drama when Ava, the Native Girl and her mother come to some sort of resolution. Overall, this structure works well for a music-drama of this sort.

The vocal style, for the most part, is pretty straightforward, dropping into a sort of Sprechstimme on occasion. The exception is the music for the Native Girl, which has something of an otherworldly, ungrounded feel. The recording is well cast with a mix of Indigenous and Settler Canadians.

Sopranos Caitlin Wood, as Ava, and Melody Courage, as the Native Girl, both sing rather beautifully in somewhat contrasting ways. Marion Newman’s heavier, darker mezzo provides Dr. Wilson with appropriate gravitas and Michelle Lafferty makes a sympathetic mother. Rounding out the ladies is Andrea Ludwig who makes a very good fist of the unenviable task of portraying Jess, Ava’s friend, who rejects Dr. Wilson’s invitation/demand to take the issue of MMIWG seriously. Asitha Tennekoon’s elegant tenor is heard to good effect as Devon, and baritone Evan Korbut is solid as the brother. The Continuum Ensemble is excellent and conductor Timothy Long paces things securely.

The recording was made at Revolution Recording in Toronto and is very fine, with great clarity and natural balance. Missing will be released on July 11 as a physical CD, MP3 and 96kHz/24bit WAV; the latter is what I listened to. There’s a booklet with background information, bios and full text plus translation of the Gitxsan sections.

As far as I know, this is the first opera written with a view to Reconciliation and it tackles a difficult and emotionally charged issue in a way that makes good theatre. This is an impressive piece that needs to be seen across Canada.

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