Greed rises. Love falters. Fate remembers.

This season, we explore the forces that push us toward wanting more: more love, more power, more money, and more control in a world that often gives us none of these. Greed becomes both a reason and a warning. Through three very different works, each rich in atmosphere and emotion, we follow the seductive rise and inevitable collapse of those who pursue what cannot truly be held, no matter how tightly they grasp. 

We begin with Juliet Palmer and Anna Chatterton’s Sweat, presented this year at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. This sharp, modern look at the garment industry shows workers laboring in silence while wealth gathers far from them. Greed here takes a cold, corporate shape that feels endless and worldwide. Palmer’s driving music and Chatterton’s raw text reveal the hidden cost of the things we buy and the lives that bear that weight. 

Next comes Puccini’s Le Villi (The Fairies), a tale filled with loss, guilt, and revenge. When a man leaves love behind in the hunt for wealth, his choice brings danger even after death. Spirits rise together to enact vengeance for the woman who has been scorned, creating a chorus of collective fury that transforms personal tragedy into a powerful supernatural judgment. Passion gives way to punishment in this rarely performed early Puccini gem, where the price of greed echoes through both the mortal and the mystical worlds.

Together, these works ask us to look at what we hope for, what we chase, and what it might cost to get it.