FLORENCE, THE LADY WITH THE LAMP

By William Littler, Music Critic, The Toronto Star (Monday, March 6, 1995)

"Opera earned second hearing"

"They called her an angel of mercy and a good many things less flattering, but you won't find in any of Florence Nightingale's standard biographies the tale of her love for an Anglican cleric in distant Elora, Ont."

"But whether legend or truth, the relationship forms the basis for Florence, The Lady With The Lamp, one of the more successful Canadian operas of recent vintage, which had its premiere at the Elora Festival (in St. John's Church itself, appropriately enough) in 1992 and its Toronto premiere over the weekend at the Jane Mallett Theatre."

"A two-act chamber opera using an orchestra of only eight players (ably conducted on this occasion by Robert Cooper), Florence begins and ends with John alone in his church, musing over what life has ordained. In between, we meet Florence and her family in Victorian England during the first act and follow her to war in the second."

"Even without submitting it to a full staging, Opera in Concert earned it's audience gratitude for embracing Florence as the first Canadian opera on its 21-year-old series. Few enough of the operas written in this country are given a first hearing; Timothy Sullivan's had clearly earned a second."