Royce Vavrek is a Canada-born, Brooklyn-based librettist and lyricist who has been called “the indie Hofmannsthal” (The New Yorker) a “Metastasio of the downtown opera scene” (The Washington Post), “an exemplary creator of operatic prose” (The New York Times), and “one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world” (CBC Radio). His opera “Angel’s Bone” with composer Du Yun was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

With composer Missy Mazzoli he wrote “Song from the Uproar,” premiered by Beth Morrison Projects in 2012, and subsequently seen in multiple presentations around the country. Their second opera, an adaptation of Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves,” premiered at Opera Philadelphia, co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects, and directed by James Darrah to critical acclaim in September of 2016. The work won the 2017 Music Critics Association of North America award for Best New Opera and was nominated for Best World Premiere at the 2017 International Opera Awards. A new production premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in the summer of 2019, produced by Scottish Opera and Opera Ventures, helmed by Tony Award-winning director Tom Morris and earned star Sydney Mancasola a coveted Herald Angel Award for her performance. Their next opera, an adaptation of Karen Russell’s short story “Proving Up,” was commissioned and presented by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha and The Miller Theatre in 2018, was a finalist for the MCANA Best New Opera Award of that year. They are currently developing a grand opera for Opera Philadelphia and the Norwegian National Opera based on an original story by two-time Governor General’s Award-winning playwright Jordan Tannahill, as well as an adaptation of George Saunders’ Booker Prize-winning novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” for The Metropolitan Opera.

Teaming up with Swedish composer Mikael Karlsson, Royce wrote the story and text for two dance projects, “Crypto,” choreographed by Guillaume Côté for Côté Dance and “Evidence of It All,” choreographed by Drew Jacoby for SFDanceworks, featuring narration by the Academy Award-nominated actress Rosamund Pike. They are currently developing two grand operas: an adaptation of Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” to premiere at the Royal Swedish Opera in 2023, and “Fanny and Alexander,” working alongside creative partner Ingmar Bergman, Jr. to musicalize his late father’s classic film for La Monnaie de Munt in 2024, in a production to be directed by Ivo van Hove. Both operas are to feature renowned mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, for whom Mikael and Royce wrote the song cycle “So We Will Vanish,” premiered by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra in 2021 to critical acclaim.

His collaboration with composer David T. Little led Heidi Waleson of the Wall Street Journal to proclaim them “one of the most exciting composer-librettist teams working in opera today.” In April of 2016 they premiered their first grand opera, “JFK,” at Fort Worth Opera, a co-commission with American Lyric Theater and Opéra de Montréal that was called “ravishing” (Opera News), earning a ten-star review in Opera Now Magazine. This followed the success of their first opera, “Dog Days,” which received its world premiere in September of 2012 at Peak Performances @ Montclair, in a production co-produced by Beth Morrison Projects and directed by American maverick Robert Woodruff. The work was celebrated as the Classical Music Event of the year by Time Out New York and a standout opera of recent decades by The New York Times. They are currently developing an original work for the Metropolitan Opera through the Met/LCT commissioning program.

Royce has also worked extensively with composer Paola Prestini, first on the song cycle "Yoani," inspired by the blog posts of Yoani Sanchez, and then on "The Hubble Cantata," a virtual reality oratorio produced by VisionIntoArt/National Sawdust in association with Beth Morrison Projects. They recently presented the workshop premiere of “Silent Light,” an opera based on the Cannes Jury Prize-winning film by Carlos Reygadas at the Banff Centre for Creativity, a collaboration with the director Thaddeus Strassberger, and are currently working on a new opera inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” They are also developing "Film Stills," a project for mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti that dramatizes four of Cindy Sherman's iconic photographs through musical monologues composed by Paola, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly and Ellen Reid, and directed by R.B. Schlather. Royce and Paola's collaboration can be further heard on the AIDS Quilt Songbook: Sing for Hope recording, where their song "Union," as sung by Isabel Leonard, is featured.

In 2014 Royce premiered “27,” his first collaboration with composer Ricky Ian Gordon, at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Created for renowned mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, the work brought to life Gertrude Stein’s famous salon at 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris. Mark Ray Rinaldi of the Denver Post wrote that the opera “tells a great American story, about Gertrude Stein, as well as opera in the 21st century.” The opera was subsequently presented by Pittsburgh Opera, MasterVoices at New York City Center, Michigan Opera Theater, Opéra de Montréal and Opera Las Vegas. In 2017 their adaptation of Gail Rock’s Christmas classic “The House Without a Christmas Tree” for Houston Grand Opera was premiered to critical acclaim.

Other recent and upcoming projects include “Strip Mall” with Matt Marks for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; “Epistle Mass” with Julian Wachner for Trinity Wall Street, “Midwestern Gothic” with Josh Schmidt for Signature Theatre, Virginia; “Naamah’s Ark” with Marisa Michelson for MasterVoices; “O Columbia” with Gregory Spears for HGOco; “Knoxville: Summer of 2015” with Ellen Reid for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and National Sawdust; “The Wild Beast of the Bungalow” with Rachel Peters for Oberlin Conservatory; “Jacqueline” with Luna Pearl Woolf for Tapestry New Opera; “Adoration” (based on the film by Atom Egoyan) with Mary Kouyoumdjian for Beth Morrison Projects; “The Cremation of Sam McGee” with Matthew Ricketts, supported by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts; and “Agnes” with Daníel Bjarnason for the Icelandic Opera.

Royce is co-Artistic Director of The Coterie, an opera-theater company founded with Tony-nominee Lauren Worsham. He holds a BFA in Filmmaking and Creative Writing from Concordia University’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Montreal and an MFA from the Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program at New York University. He is an alum of American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program.

Spencer Kryzanowski is a passionate crossover artist working as a conductor, music director, répétiteur, and vocal coach in both musical theatre and opera.

Spencer is the assistant conductor and pianist for Edmonton Opera; a staff member in the University of Toronto Opera department; resident music director for Good Mess Opera Theatre; and resident music director for Pop Goes the Opera in Edmonton, Alberta. On top of these regular positions, Spencer maintains a busy freelance schedule.

As a conductor and music director, Spencer has worked on numerous opera and musical theatre productions across Canada. His recent opera credits include Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle (Edmonton Opera), Strauss Jr's Die Fledermaus (Edmonton Opera), Puccini's Il tabarro (Pop Goes the Opera), Massenet's Cendrillon (UofT Opera), Hank and Gremlin (Good Mess Opera), and La bohème (Mercury Opera). Spencer's recent musical theatre credits include Newsies, Mean Girls: The Musical, and Beauty and the Beast with Bravo Academy.

Spencer's recent répétiteur credits include Guerrero's El huésped del sevillano with Toronto Operetta Theatre, Nino Rota's Il cappello di paglia di Firenze, and a comedic triple-bill of Hindemith's Hin und zurück, Offenbach's Monsieur Choufleuri, and Douglas Moore's Gallantry. Other credits include Humperdink's Hänsel und Gretel with Berlin Opera Academy; Copland's The Tender Land; Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia; Puccini’s Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi; and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Spencer had the pleasure of workshopping Melancholia, an opera based on the Lars von Trier film, by Mikael Karlsson and Royce Vavrek in 2023 for the Royal Swedish Opera. Additionally, Spencer assisted as a répétiteur and vocal coach in a workshop of Indians on Vacation by Ian Cusson and Royce Vavrek in 2024 as part of a collaboration with Against the Grain Theatre and Edmonton Opera.

Spencer has participated in a number of prestigious training programs in Canada and Europe including the Opera in the 21st Century program at the Banff Centre, St. Andrew's Opera Workshop, Berlin Opera Academy, and Opera NUOVA.

Spencer completed his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta and a Diploma in Operatic Performance (Répétiteur) at the University of Toronto.

Spencer is based in Toronto, Canada.

Known for her “beautiful” and “focused” sound (La Scena Musicale), mezzo soprano Lissy Meyerowitz has established herself as an exciting emerging artist in Toronto and beyond. Her most recent run as Tessa in Toronto Operetta Theatre’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers showcased her “velvety, unforced mezzo voice” (Opera Canada). She is a graduate from the University of Toronto’s Opera (U of T Opera) Master’s program and she gave her graduating performance at the Elgin Theatre in the role of Le prince charmant in Massenet’s Cendrillon in March 2024. She sang her role debut as Rosina in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia with Highlands Opera Studio in August 2024, where she worked with renowned artists such as Richard Margison, Valerie Kuinka, Christine Goerke and Warren Jones. Her upcoming performances include Mercédès in Brott Opera’s production of Carmen this summer and the mezzo soprano soloist in Duruflé’s Requiem with Leaside United Church.

She made her opera debut as Nicklausse in the 2019 production of Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann with the Halifax Summer Opera Festival. She made her European debut in 2022 in Vicenza, Italy as La vecchia in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with the International Lyric Academy. Her other roles include La Baronessa in Nino Rota’s Il cappello di paglia di Firenze, Petermann in Offenbach’s M. Choufleuri and 2nd woman in Arthur Benjamin’s A Tale of Two Cities.

During her undergraduate and graduate degrees at U of T, Lissy has performed in masterclasses with esteemed artists such as Stratton Visitors in Music Susan Graham, Lawrence Brownlee, Eric Owens and Will Crutchfield, as well as Elliot Madore in the 2022 Riki Turofsky Masterclass in Voice. She was a Sidgwick Scholar for the Orpheus Choir of Toronto (2022-2024) under the baton of Robert Cooper and later, Thomas Burton.

Lissy is very passionate about new music. She has had the privilege of being in two U of T Student Composer Collective operas: Disobedience (2023) as 3rd apprentice and Lysistrata (2024) as Ismenia. She has performed with the Modern Sound Collective’s Concreamus, a choir dedicated to performing new music by emerging composers. In 2024, she was a part of a workshop in collaboration with U of T Opera and Against the Grain Theatre for Ian Cusson and Royce Vavrek’s new opera Indians on Vacation. In 2023, she participated in a similar workshop with U of T Opera for Mika Karlsson and Royce Vavrek’s operatic adaptation of the film Melancholia, which premiered at the Kungliga Operan in Stockholm in 2023. In 2023, she premiered the role of Los in Allan Bevan’s choral composition Perfectly Mad, a captivating work based on the texts of William Blake, in semi-staged performances with the Orpheus Choir of Toronto and Chorus Niagara.

Lissy is excited to continue working with composers, emerging or established, on new works dedicated to telling beautiful and important stories.

Lissy is a proud student of Mark Daboll.

Photo by Emily Rocha.

Ben Wallace is a “versatile and vocally powerful” (Opera Canada) baritone, conductor, pianist, and teacher. He joined the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio this season, where he was recently featured as Figaro in an Ensemble Studio performance of The Barber of Seville. Also at the COC, Ben played Paris in Roméo et Juliette, covered Marullo in Rigoletto, and will be playing Brühlmann in a new production of Werther. This summer, Ben will be a resident artist at the Glimmerglass Festival, covering Curly in Oklahoma! and Tommy McIntyre in Fellow Travelers.

Other performance highlights include Top in The Tender Land (Toronto City Opera), Figaro in The Barber of Seville (Highlands Opera Studio), Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Pandolfe in Cendrillon (UofT Opera), Le Dancaïre/Moralès in Carmen (Southern Ontario Lyric Opera), and John Brooke in Little Women (Opera Laurier). Ben was also a resident artist at the Banff Centre in 2024.

On the concert stage, Ben has performed as the baritone soloist for Messiah, the Requiems of Fauré, Duruflé, Mozart, and Brahms, and various Bach cantatas with ensembles across Ontario. This season, he has appeared as a soloist for Messiah with the Guelph Chamber Choir, Spiritus Ensemble, Grand River Chorus, and St. Thomas Choral Connection, Mozart’s Requiem with Grand River Chorus, Saint-Saëns’ Oratorio de Noël with Arcady Ensemble, and Runestad’s The Hope of Loving with the Grand Philharmonic Choir.

Ben is committed to creating spaces of welcome that both honour the past and amplify the voices of today. He formed his own chamber choir and orchestra in 2022 and has since conducted the premieres of four choral works by Canadian composer Justin Lapierre. Their most recent and ambitious project to date was the premiere of a new 70-minute oratorio, The Gatherers, which explores the intrinsic connection of humans and communities to the environment.

Equally at home in the world of musical theatre, Ben has served as the music director for productions of Company, The Last Five Years, In View: The Lyrics of Gord Downie (Downtown Theatre Project), Cabaret, Matilda, Legally Blonde (Royal City Musical Productions), and 13 the Musical (Guelph Little Theatre).

Ben was a winner of the 2025 Toronto Mozart Vocal Competition, a recipient of the Laurier Alumni Gold Medal, and a winner of the Laurier Concerto Competition. He earned his Master of Music degree from the University of Toronto and his Bachelor of Music from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Praised for his “excellent baritone” (Le Devoir) and “outstanding acting” (Opera Canada), Acadian bass-baritone Nicholas Murphy is a rising name in Canada. A current member of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, Murphy looks forward to making his main stage debut as Usher in Rigoletto and Don Bartolo in the student performance of Il Barbiere di Siviglia this winter. Recently performed roles include Maestro Spinelloccio and Pinellino in Calgary Opera’s Gianni Schicchi, Don Bartolo in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Brott and Highlands Opera, Pandolfe in Cendrillon, and Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola with Opera McGill, other notable appearances include singing the bass soloist for the Red Deer Symphony’s Messiah tour in 2025,being a finalist in the Wirth Vocal Prize, as well as L’Atelier Lyrique’s Talent Gala in the 2024 season.