Canadian soprano Lauren Margison has been in Mainz debuting the roles of Anna and Nedda in the company’s double-bill production of Puccini’s Le Villi and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. In this Opera Places, she gives us a tour of Mainz—the beautiful capital of the Rhineland-Palatinate region.
The late American musicologist Joseph Kerman famously dubbed Puccini’s Tosca “that shabby little shocker,” though his pithy characterization is actually the opening salvo of a critical assault on the composer’s final opera, Turandot. Kerman had already had his way...
Lebanese-Canadian Soprano Joyce E-Khoury is in Montreal, singing the role of Cio-Cio-San in Opéra de Montréal‘s reimagined production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, a role she debuted last season with Welsh National Opera. In this Artist of the Week, she reflects on her career in opera, shares how it all began, and what’s keeping her inspired.
There is a lot of talk in Richard Strauss’s Salome that something bad may happen. Several unfortunate things happened concerning Houston Grand Opera’s sixth staging of the opera, seen April 30 in Wortham Theater Center’s Brown Theater. But multiple delays and...
Verdi’s Macbeth, which opened the Canadian Opera Company’s spring season April 28, is a challenging piece. It premiered in Florence in 1847 but was then revised for Paris in 1865 with significant cuts and additions. It’s mainly the later version we see today, which...
American soprano Marjorie Owens is in Vancouver, BC singing one of her signature roles, Senta in Vancouver Opera‘s new production of Wagner‘s The Flying Dutchman. Join us she she gives us a tour of what makes the city great, from cherry blossoms to magnificent mountain views.
Canadian tenor Scott Rumble is in Vancouver making his role debut singing Steuermann in Vancouver Opera’s new production of The Flying Dutchman, which opened April 29 and has two performances left on May 4 and 7. In this Artist of the Week, he reflects on what inspired him to sing, favourite operatic inspirations and more.
Manitoba Opera (MO) capped its 50th anniversary season with laughter and wit this spring; its latest production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte cheekily billed as a “Canuck Cosi” more Canadian than a bottle of maple syrup or hockey Saturday night. Three performances held...
There’s a fistful of good reasons for seeing Champion. There’s the story, a real and strong one: the life of the sexually conflicted prizefighter Emile Griffith, haunted by his accidental killing of another boxer in the ring. There’s James Robinson’s direction, clear...
In his not-quite-fourteen years at The Metropolitan Opera, that compact bundle of music-directorial energy known as Yannick Nézet-Séguin has taken his measured time with Puccini: a decade passed before his first Turandot, in October 2019, and another two years elapsed...
Vancouver Opera has unveiled its 2023–2024 season, headlined by much-loved and reimagined classics, and casting that features some welcome returns and company debuts.
Canadian tenor Andrew Haji is in Calgary performing the role of Macduff in Calgary Opera's new Rachel Peake-directed production of Verdi's Macbeth which opened April 22 and has two performances left on April 26 and 28 (tickets here). The production also stars Italian...