It was a banner month of June for Canadian singers in the UK. First, mezzo Simone McIntosh proudly represented the Maple Leaf at the 2023 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. She delivered a stellar aria round in the competition’s opening heat on June 11–a...
Winnipeg-born soprano Kady Evanyshyn completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree at The Juilliard School. She quickly gained the attention of critics when she sang the role of Annio (La clemenza di Tito) at the Aspen Music Festival in 2017. Many performances at...
The glorious history of Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten at the San Francisco Opera—including its 1959 U.S. premiere and the still vivid 1976 staging under Karl Böhm and Nikolaus Lehnhoff—is continuing in brilliant form. Sir Donald Runnicles, the beloved past...
Canadian soprano Mireille Asselin is in her hometown of Ottawa, ON reprising the role of Zerlina in the National Arts Centre Orchestra’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which opened June 15 and has one show left on June 17. She gives us a tour of Canada’s lush, green capital including her favourite spots and activities along the canal.
Canadian tenor Charles Sy is in Stuttgart, Germany preparing to reprise the role of Il Conte d’Almaviva in Staatsoper Stuttgart‘s production of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia (singing July 4, 6 and 10). The production opens on June 21 and runs to July 10. We caught up with Sy to reflect on opera, life lessons he’s learned along his career path, and how to cope with the music industry’s ups and downs.
Manitoba Underground Opera surfaced this spring with its ambitious new 2023 festival titled "Odyssey", setting sail with Laura Gow’s The Mansplaining Division as the first of three mainstage shows presented May 24-26. This year also marks a radical departure for the...
How often does an opera audience seem united by one big, heady communal high? That was the feeling at The Metropolitan Opera’s new Die Zauberflöte on May 22, a giddily joyous experience that sent me home in buoyant spirits. Simon McBurney’s tirelessly inventive,...
Pour sa première production, en 1985, L’Opéra de Québec avait choisi Madama Butterfly. Repris en 1999, 2005 et 2013, cet opéra de Puccini revient donc sur la scène du Grand Théâtre pour la 5e fois. La pandémie étant officiellement terminée, ses quatre représentations...
On paper, the Canadian Opera Company’s Pomegranate, the opera about lesbian love and loss was intriguing and appealing; it had its world premiere on June 2 at the COC Theatre on Front Street. A plot line that shifts between ancient Pompeii as Vesuvius erupts and a...
Juno award-winning Canadian-Armenian composer and pianist Serouj Kradjian is in Toronto, preparing to present the world premiere of his opera and the latest commission from the Canadian Children’s Opera Company, The Nightingale of a Thousand Songs, created with Dora award-winning librettist Marjorie Chan. We sat down with him to chat sources of inspiration, lessons learned and what it means to be brave in music.
Canadian baritone Samuel Chan gives us a tour of beautiful NordDeutschland, showing us his favourite spots in Kiel. Chan has been a member of the Oper Kiel ensemble since 2020, and is currently debuting the role of Lescaut in the company’s production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, runs to July 2.
Nikkei Canadian settler Teiya Kasahara 笠原 貞野 is in Toronto, preparing to sing the roles of Priestess and Jules in the Canadian Opera Company‘s production of Kye Marshall and Amanda Hale’s Pomegranate. We caught up with them to chat all things opera—sources of inspiration, early career beginnings, and more.