The Secret World of Og Synopsis

The opera tells the coming-of-age story of a group of children who find their own courage and confidence to deal with a world unknown to them – that of the Ogs!  

As the opera starts, Penny and Pamela are reading in their playhouse, while their younger sister, Patsy, banished for painting the windows green, sits outside with her pet snake. Pamela sees a strange, green creature enter through a trap door in the floor who steal toys and books but, doubting the others will believe her, says nothing.

The girls’ brothers, Peter and Pollywog, and Earless (the cat) and Yukie (the dog) come to play dress up. Without them noticing, the green creature reappears and takes Pollywog and Earless down through the trapdoor.  When Pamela tells them about what she saw earlier, the siblings and Yukie decide to go save them.

In the tunnel to the Og’s underworld, Penny hopes for confidence and tells the others to hide while she investigates. She enters a cavern with mushroom houses inhabited by green beings that seem to only say “OG”. Everywhere she sees things she had noticed missing from the playhouse. Though Yukie tries to be brave and protect her, she is taken off to jail by Ogs dressed as cowboys. On the way she spots Earless in a butcher’s cage but is powerless to help. When they arrive at the jail, Penny is relieved to be reunited with Pollywog. She is surprised to hear the Sheriff speak English to her and even more so when he says he is the Wyatt Earp of cowboy legend!

Back in the tunnel, Pamela realizes that with Penny gone, she now must be the courageous, big sister.  She comes up with a plan to use Patsy’s tube of green paint to disguise Peter as an Og. 

In the cavern, Peter plays the part of an ‘Og’ and manages to free Earless, but when the Ogs see the paint on his arms rubs off, they try to capture him.  Two ‘pirate’ Ogs named Hook and Smee learn his name is Peter, and they assume he is the famous ‘Peter Pan’ and challenge him to defend himself.  Peter gets the idea to pretend that Earless is Tick-Tock, the crocodile from the tale of Peter Pan, and is amazed to see the Ogs flee in terror. 

At the jail, Penny is freed when Pollywog sneaks the keys out of the Sheriff’s pocket while he is sleeping. Penny realizes the Sheriff’s gun is only a toy and that the Ogs are just playing pretend. Penny plays along and now captures the Sheriff.  When Peter and Earless run in, they write a note saying they are ok which Earless is to deliver to their sisters in the tunnel and head off for the cavern. 

Back in the tunnel, a group of ‘spy’ Ogs intercept Earless and read the note – which they assume is in code. They begin to search for enemy spies, but when Patsy’s snake escapes from her pocket they run away in terror.

In the cavern Peter, Penny, and Pollywog arrive with their hostage, the Sheriff, and demand to know what is going on. In the form of a pageant, the Ogs explain that originally the only word they had was “OG”.  After discovering the wonder of a book, they realized how dull their lives were. They stole more books and toys from the playhouse and learned to talk and act like the characters in the stories.  They explain their only fear is the Snake People who live up the river.

The children say they must return home, but the Ogs worry they will tell others of their existence. Meanwhile, more Ogs arrive with news of Patsy’s snake, Snavely, who they think is a dreaded Snake Person. Realizing how to get the upper hand, the siblings tell the Ogs they have a ‘secret weapon’ to defeat the Snake People. However, they will only use it to help if they are released, and the Ogs stop using the tunnel beneath their playhouse. The Ogs agree, and the crisis is averted.  As the children say good-bye, they sing that while make-believe can be fun, the real adventure is living life as yourself!!

The Secret World of Og Background

Dean Burry, Composer/Librettist

Composer and librettist Dean Burry has become one of the world’s leading composers of children’s opera, his works receiving performances across Canada, the United States, Europe, China and Brazil. At over 600 performances, his opera The Brothers Grimm is one of the most produced operas of the twenty-first century and his operatic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit recently received its European premiere to sold out houses in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 2018, Burry accepted a professorship at the Dan School of Drama and Music at Queen’s University in Kingston and is the founding Artistic Director of the Watershed Festival - Reimagining Music Theatre.

Burry has composed seventeen commissioned operas including The Hobbit and The Secret World of Og for the Canadian Children’s Opera Company and Sarasota Opera, The Scorpions’ Sting for the Canadian Opera Company, The Mummers’ Masque for Toronto Masque Theatre and the CBC serial radio opera Baby Kintyre (released on the Centredisc and Naxos labels in September, 2014). His most recent compositions include Tempest in a Teacup, which premiered in Guiyang, China, The Bells of Baddeck, Shanawdithit (Tapestry Opera and Opera on the Avalon), Sea Variations, a song cycle for Canadian Art Song Project and tenor Michael Colvin and String Quartet No.1 (New Orford String Quartet/Prince Edward County Chamber Music Festival). The opera Shawnadithit was awarded the 2020 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Opera.

Burry was the 2011 recipient of the Ontario Arts Foundation’s Louis Applebaum Composers Award for excellence in the field of music for young people. He is currently working on the opera Il Giudizio di Pigmalione and Tracing Colville: works that will premiere with Opera McGill and the Kingston Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2022.

Pierre Berton, Author

Pierre Berton was one of Canada’s most popular and prolific authors. His works include books of narrative histories and popular culture, coffee table books stories for children, and historical works for youth. Many of his fifty books are Canadian classics. 

Born in 1920 and raised in the Yukon, Pierre Berton worked in Klondike mining camps during his university years. He spent four years in the army, rising from private to captain/instructor at the Royal Military College in Kingston. He spent his early newspaper career in Vancouver, where at 21 he was the youngest city editor on any Canadian daily. He wrote columns for and was editor of Maclean’s magazine, appeared on CBC’s public affairs program “Close-Up” and was a permanent fixture on “Front Page Challenge” for 39 years. He was a columnist and editor for the Toronto Star and was a writer and host of a series of CBC programs.

Pierre Berton received over 30 literary awards including the Governor-General’s Award for Creative Non-Fiction (three times), the Stephen Leacock Medal of Humour, and the Gabrielle Leger National Heritage Award. He received two Nellies for his work in broadcasting, two National Newspaper awards, and the National History Society’s first award for “distinguished achievement in popularizing Canadian history.” For his immense contribution to Canadian literature and history, he was awarded more than a dozen honorary degrees. He is a member of the Newsman’s Hall of Fame, as well as a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Pierre Berton died in Toronto on November 30, 2004.

About The Secret World of Og
By Dean Burry

I first entered Berton’s Og-world back in 2000 when Ann Cooper Gay (then Artistic Director of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company) asked me to find the subject for a new children’s opera. The Secret World of Og was one of about a hundred books I scoured that summer but that search ended in an extended vacation to Tolkien’s Middle Earth (The Hobbit). However, I vowed to return to that subterranean domain of little green Ogs. I’ll never forget the day back in late November 2004 when I officially requested permission from Elsa Franklin, Berton’s agent. In the morning I sent the request and returned home for supper to a phone message from my parents informing me that Berton had passed away. I was sure that approval would be indefinitely delayed, but the next day, I was invited to Elsa’s house for champagne to celebrate the life of an incredible Canadian storyteller. Permission was granted and my underground adventure was OG...I mean off.

It has been a fun and varied trip. Many musical works for the stage are criticized for being too much of a pastiche, stealing their material from too many sources and therefore not achieving unity. I had to snicker when I realized the culture of the Ogs is ALL pastiche, stolen from above: pirate shanties, cowboy hoe downs and jazzy spy themes all have their place in a world where everything is pretend. It feels like a journey back to my own childhood and the power of pretending.