The Country in Her Throat is about Emma Albani, Canada’s first operatic superstar. She was born in 1847 in Chambly, Quebec, as Emma Lajeunesse and made her debut at Covent Garden in 1872 at the age of 25. But this is by no means a biographical play, but rather, a play that uses Albani’s career as a way of exploring other themes. Fortin refracts Albani’s bright career through the memories of her sister Cornelia, a pianist who accompanied, in both senses, the soprano throughout her early career, and arrived in London with her. The country in Emma’s throat is both the idealized country of art, and also the very real country that they left behind and to which they can never return.

Simon Fortin has been involved in theatre both as an actor and a playwright, both in French and English Canada. His other plays (co–authored with Guylaine Tremblay) include Poison d’Avril and Souriez Mille Robi. Bill Glassco is the founding artistic director of Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, co–founding director of the Canadian Stage Company, and one of this country’s best known directors of Canadian work. He has also translated plays by Michel Tremblay and Michel Marc Bouchard.

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Born in Quebec, William Grant (“Bill”) Glassco was a Canadian theatre director, producer and founder of Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre. From 1959 to 1964, Glassco taught English at the University of Toronto. He lived in New York City from 1967 to 1969, where he studied acting and directing. Glassco returned to Canada in 1969. He founded the Tarragon Theatre in 1970 with his wife Jane (née Gordon), and stayed there until 1982. Later, he became the artistic director of the CentreStage Theatre Company which merged, in 1988, with the Toronto Free Theatre to become CanStage.In 1982, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

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