A Prayer for Owen Meany
THE OPERA
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New opera based on the internationally bestselling novel by John Irving​
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Music and Libretto by Luna Pearl Woolf​
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Translated into more than thirty-five languages, A Prayer for Owen Meany is Canadian-American Author John Irving’s all-time best-selling novel, in every language.
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The novel begins: I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice – not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death…
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Following Johnny Wheelwright, his friend “THE VOICE” Owen, and John’s fiery cousin Hester, the opera captures Irving’s dynamic, often hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking moments and characters, escalating to the climatic episode that reveals the miracle of Owen Meany’s faith and power. John is left to endlessly feel the impact of Owen’s overwhelming belief, in an increasingly unfathomable world. Meanwhile Hester’s on-stage grunge-rock stardom is her outlet for grappling with the unthinkable.
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​Musique 3 Femmes seeks co-commissioners and co-producers for a new full-scale opera by composer/librettist Luna Pearl Woolf. A GRAMMY Award-nominated artist (Fire and Flood: 2021 Best Classical Compendium), she has received opera and oratorio commissions from leading companies across North America, including Toronto’s Tapestry Opera, Washington National Opera, and the Perelman Performing Arts Center at New York’s World Trade Center.
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CAST:
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Featured:
OWEN – Soprano
JOHN – Baritone
YOUNG HESTER – Mezzo
DAN – Tenor
REVEREND MERRILL – Tenor
RECTOR WIGGIN – Soprano
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Company:
TABITHA / CAMP COUNSELOR 1 – Soprano
OLD HESTER – Mezzo/Contralto
HARRIET / COACH / CAMP COUNSELOR 2 – Baritone
MR. MORRISON / DICK – Bass-Baritone
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Ensemble:
Youth/adult ensemble includes COUSINS, LITTLE LEAGERS, FAN GIRLS, CAMPERS
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​Orchestra of 30-40 players
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​Duration: two acts, 140 minutes
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DEVELOPMENT:
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Libretto, commissioned by M3F, workshopped in collaboration with Pacific Opera Victoria and the National Theatre School of Canada. (2024-5)
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Act I music composition and piano workshop. (2026)
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Act II music composition and piano workshop, Orchestral workshop. (2027/2028)
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Premiere co-production period (2028-2030)
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RIGHTS:
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The rights to adapt the novel are secured. John Irving supports the project and is in regular contact with the creative team.
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​For more information, please contact Kristin Hoff, Musique 3 Femmes Artistic & General Director
kristin@musique3femmes.com
Libretto workshop 2026 - highlights
Luna Pearl Woolf
Photo by szetoshoots
Award-winning composer Luna Pearl Woolf has long used her evocative voice to advocate for social and political change. Her work has been praised as “brilliant … profoundly moving” (Opera Going Toronto) for its “psychological nuances and emotional depth” (NY Times). Her dramatic works are championed by major opera houses and international performing artists.
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Woolf’s oratorio Number Our Days, with concept and libretto by David Van Taylor, was commissioned and premiered by PAC NYC in its inaugural 2023-2024 season, receiving a thunderous response: “extraordinary, completely original…new and electrifying,” “death-affirming, life-inciting,” “elegiac, funny, haunting…poetic, and utterly unique.”
Canada’s CBC Music named the JUNO award-nominated recording Vagues et Ombres including Woolf’s 2022 work, Contact, as their #1 Classical Album of the year; and her 2021 composer-portrait album, LUNA PEARL WOOLF: Fire and Flood (Pentatone Oxingale Series) was nominated for a GRAMMY Award.
Woolf’s opera Jacqueline, about legendary cellist Jacqueline du Pré, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, commissioned and premiered by Tapestry Opera, was hailed as an “extraordinary piece, one that deserves an unquestioned place in the 21st-century canon” (The Globe and Mail). Its 2020 premiere garnered five nominations and a win in Toronto’s prestigious Dora Awards.
Woolf mentors new opera creators in her work with Montreal’s Musique 3 Femmes, and teaches about the intersection of text and music at institutions such as the National Theater School of Canada and McGill University. She is co-founder of Oxingale Productions, a ground-breaking record label and music publisher supporting new music by lyrical and innovative contemporary composers.
A dual Canadian-American citizen, Woolf was born Western Massachusetts and lives in Montréal, Quebec.
John Irving
John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942.
His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times, winning in 1980 for The World According to Garp. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2013, he won a Lambda Literary Award for In One Person.
Internationally renowned, his books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. A Prayer for Owen Meany is his best-selling novel, in every language.
John Irving is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. He lives in Toronto.
Photo by Derek O'Donnell