Tornrak

Tornrak is the third opera by Welsh composer John Metcalf. It has an English-language libretto by Michael Wilcox with Inuktitut sections translated by Blendina Makkik. Set between the worlds of the Canadian Arctic and Victorian Britain, it features Inuit throat singing and other extended vocal techniques that give the Arctic scenes a distinct character. The opera was composed between 1986 and 1990 when Metcalf was working in Canada. It was first staged in 1990 in a co-production by the Banff Centre, where Metcalf worked, and the Welsh National Opera who had commissioned the work.

Although Welsh National Opera (WNO) had first discussed with Metcalf the possibility of his writing a second opera, after The Journey, for them in 1981, it was not until 1986 that Brian McMaster, the company's then managing director, first brought the composer and librettist together. After Wilcox had initially started work on another idea, Metcalf contacted him about the true story of a 19th-century Inuit girl, Milak, who rescued a British sailor, Arthur. Like the character in the opera, the true Milak was shown as a circus freak; unlike her, she returned home.

The development of Tornrak was greatly influenced by Metcalf's move to Canada later in 1986 to teach on the Music Theatre course at the Banff Centre in Alberta. He subsequently became Artistic Director of the programme and Composer-in-Residence. Wilcox visited Metcalf in Canada that winter to work on the first draft of the libretto and used the library facilities there to learn about Inuit traditions and mythology. Metcalf too found that the setting enabled him to portray their subject in a more genuine manner. "If I wasn't in the North itself, at least I could now be in contact with a way of looking at the world, the culture, the music, and the language of the Inuit that would have been absolutely impossible in Wales."

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