Vancouver Opera’s world premiere of the original Canadian opera, Lillian Alling.


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Left to Right Bruce Ralston, MLA Surrey-Whalley, Playwright John Murrell, and my mother Mollie Ralston (nee Owens).   
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Description: Mollie Ralston (nee Owens) was on hand for the Vancouver Opera's world premiere of the original Canadian opera, Lillian Alling, which opened at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver October 16. She is pictured here with John Murrell, who wrote the opera's libretto, and son Surrey-Whalley MLA Bruce Ralston. The opera is based on the true story of Lillian Alling, a Russian immigrant who, after landing in New York, was determined to go back home and walked across the continent with the intent of crossing the Bering Strait. In 1928, as a child of six, Mollie Ralston met Lillian Alling, who stayed overnight at the family farm near Evelyn, eight miles north of Smithers. She remembers Lillian Alling, wearing a dress and tennis shoes, brushing her dark brown long hair in the morning. She left after the night, carrying all her possesions in a box the size of a beer case and held together with rope.