Dead baby story inspires composer to create radio opera
CBC radio broadcast concludes Dec. 5
Dead baby story inspires composer to create radio opera.
Opera composer and librettist Dean Burry composed a five-part radio opera called Baby Kintyre, about the unidentified remains of a baby found on Kintyre Ave. in July 2007, wrapped in pages from the Mail and Empire newspaper from 1925.
Photo/COURTESY
Like many, long-time Toronto resident Dean Burry was shocked, disturbed and intrigued by the July 2007 discovery of a mummified baby boy's corpse in the floorboards of a Riverside home.Burry, one of Canada's top composers of operas for children and youth, said he was curious to learn more about the dire circumstances leading someone to hide a dead baby, wrapped in both a blanket and in a copy of the Sept. 15, 1925 Empire and Mail newspaper, in the second-floor ceiling of a Kintyre Avenue home."I thought it was a creepy story and a very intriguing one," said the father of two."You never know what goes on behind closed doors. You never know exactly what's going on with your happy neighbours."Always on the lookout for interesting subjects for his work, Burry said he came up with the idea of creating a "Baby Kintyre" radio opera while driving home from the cottage that Labour Day weekend."When I heard this piece on the radio it sounded like an opera being handed to me," he enthused of the real-life, tabloid-esque drama."I didn't really have to go very far to make this an interesting story. You don't always get handed something so beautifully gift wrapped as this project." From there, the Newfoundland native said he got in touch with some producers from the CBC and successfully pitched the idea as a five-part radio opera serial. A production team researched the story for the next several months and this past May it was recorded. "It's been a great project," Burry said, explaining 95 per cent of the episodes are sung, but also include some spoken word, sound effects, music, and news clips.The first episode aired on Saturday, Nov. 7 and will run for five consecutive Saturdays until Dec. 5 on CBC's Radio Two Saturday Afternoon at the Opera.Divided into eight-minute segments, the Baby Kintyre radio opera tells the story of a deceased infant boy believed to belong to an unmarried aunt from New York City who had visited the Kintyre Avenue home.Back in 1925, Wesley and Della Russell owned the three-storey house at 29 Kintyre Ave., where the remains were found. Title records show Wesley died in 1939 and Della was sent to the Mimico Hospital for the Insane, now long since closed.The couple's 10-year-old niece Rita Rich lived with them in the house at the time. Now in her 90s, Rich has been instrumental in helping to piece the story back together after eight decades of silence. The tragic secret all began to unfold on July 24, 2007 when an unsuspecting contractor named Bob Kinghorn found the dead infant's remains while installing a light switch in a neighbour's house. The community came together in a big way following the sad discovery and that November, 82 years after his death, "Baby Kintyre" was buried in a Richmond Hill cemetery. He was also remembered with a tree planting, a bench and a plaque in a parkette behind the neighbouring Queen Alexandra School.Visit http://www.cbc.ca/radiocommissions/ to hear previously-aired episodes of the Baby Kintyre radio opera.