Sanctuary & Storm

Sanctuary & Storm is a new opera by Tawnie Olson (composer) and Roberta Barker (librettist), that depicts a fictional debate between the two most powerful women in Medieval Europe: Hildegard of Bingen, the Sibyl of the Rhein and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Duchess of Aquitaine, Queen of the Normans.

The two women have had very different life experiences and yet they find themselves in a similar position: they have risen to great power and yet they are still not respected in the same way as their male equivalents in their society. Their very different life experiences cause them to fall into a heated argument about how to move beyond the oppression they face and to lose sight of their common goal: a world reborn. Commenting on the debate, is the Angel of History, who sees into the past, present and future and reminds Hildegard and Eleanor, as well as the audience, that there is a common goal, but that history has a habit of repeating itself.

Performers