Category: Opera / Chamber Opera
Instrumentation: three sopranos and piano
Duration: approximately 29 minutes

Featured Arias and Excerpts:
The Greatest Gift
Just a Tiny Seed
The Serenity Prayer

Libretto by Alize Rozsnyai, after an idea by Annie Gill with input from Caitlin Vincent

A Pregnant Pause is a chamber opera for three sopranos and piano that follows Serena as she waits for the results of a home pregnancy test. Unsure whether she wants to be pregnant, Serena is visited by two angelic versions of herself: one arguing in favor of pregnancy and one against it.

Garth Baxter brings his lyrical, dramatically direct musical language to an intimate and emotionally charged subject. The opera unfolds in real time as Serena waits for the result of a pregnancy test, allowing the drama to emerge from uncertainty, inner conflict, and sharply contrasted perspectives.

The two angels who appear to Serena are not external supernatural figures so much as divided aspects of her own mind and heart. Through its compact chamber format, the opera offers a focused, performer-friendly dramatic work shaped by vocal expressiveness, theatrical clarity, and emotional immediacy.

Performers: Alize Francheska Rozsnyai, Serena / Annie Gill, Con Angel / Katherine Boyce, Pro Angel / Aaron Thacker, pianist / Marcelle McGuirk, conductor / Stephen Strosnider, director