The reviews on Silence are in!

“Silence, the character, was sung by Toronto-based soprano Teiya Kasahara; one of their specialties is singing Mozart’s Queen of the Night, and Uyeda gave them plenty of stratospheric tessitura to flash.

Ymma (Lara Ciekiewicz) too was comfortable in the extremes of the soprano range, and when the two sopranos ere in musical dialogue, their penetrating sound delivered inevitably dramatic effect.

Budget constraints gave Uyeda just six musicians to write for, but the six – a violinist, cellist, clarinettist, flautist, percussionist and pianist – created a sound world that accentuated the singers’ parts, and told the story in musically interesting ways, sometimes in ensemble with the singers, sometimes in their own gloss on the opera’s narrative flow. Percussionist Brian Thurgood and flautist Petar Dundjerskimade an especially strong impression, with Uyeda’s variety of colours.”

— Opera Canada, June 23, 2025 by Bill Rankin

“This new addition to the opera repertoire, adapted from a fascinating play, has a challenging score by Vancouver composer Leslie Uyeda, [which nevertheless] sounded grateful to sing and skillfully kept the [dramatic] pace going.”

— Edmonton Scene, July 21, 2025 by Mark Morris

“You can see the attraction of the play to an opera company — big characters that seem even bigger in a small-scale production, a fulsome story, [and capitalizing] on the artifices of opera to give the period rhythms of the language a kind of enjoyable natural comedy.

Silence is a fascinating debut, ambitious and theatrically challenging.”

— 12thNight.ca, June 24, 2025 by Liz Nicholls