Grammy-award winning Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley has announced a number of exciting projects to come in 2022/23, most recently, singing Il Conte di Almaviva in Opéra National de Paris’ new production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro running until Dec 28. We had the chance to sit down with Finley and chat all things opera, from life lessons to craziest stage mishaps.
Handel's 1735 opera Alcina is one of the most popular baroque operas in the repertoire and is featured somewhere around Europe or England every year, either in a festival or an opera house. The last decade has seen: Katie Mitchel's darkly satirical, Shades of...
The recent hybrid CD/SACD release of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide on the London Symphony Orchestra’s own label is drawn from live semi-staged performances at the Barbican in London in December 2018. That production was, in turn, based on a 2004 production for the New...
Hamilton-born countertenor and activist Cameron Shahbazi is quickly gaining acclaim. If you’re in Frankfurt this week, don’t miss him in Oper Frankfurt’s charity concert for Iran, “Woman. Life. Freedom.”, singing alongside Ambur Braid, Lilian Farahani, Kristine Opolais, Giulia Semenzato and Anna Bonitatibus.
Snow is starting to fall, the nights are getting longer, and holiday trees are starting to go up. To help get you into the spirit, we’ve rounded up some of the most festive events from across Canada including of course, Handel’s beloved masterpiece.
Is Kevin Puts’s The Hours the best brand-new opera the Metropolitan Opera has presented in years? Probably. It’s meticulously crafted, eminently singable, and makes for an eclectically influenced but almost consistently alluring listen. “Based on the book by Michael...
On November 28, 2022, the 2022 International Opera Awards were presented at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain. Known as the "Oscars of Opera", the awards aim to recognize and reward success, create scholarships for emerging talent and raise the profile of opera as an...
Purists apparently have some bones to pick with this new production of Armide, judging from the various and contradictory criticism in the French press, but for me, the essential elements were united to make for a very satisfactory performance, to say the least. First...
For Canadian soprano Layla Claire, the 2022/23 season is one of role creations. Having just closed the world premiere run of Bilodeau/Bouchard’s La Beauté du Monde yesterday as Jeanne Boitel at Opéra de Montréal, Layla will get to create another major role in Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino’s Venere e Adone singing the title role of Venere at Hamburg Staatsoper in the spring.
Canada’s innovative music and opera organizations — re:Naissance Opera, Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre, Turning Point Ensemble, Arraymusic, and Loose Tea Music Theatre — have announced the premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Angel’s Bone. The premiere will take place in Vancouver from November 25–27, 2022 at The Annex Theatre as part of IndieFest.
Canadian mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy is a well-recognized voice on many of the world’s leading stages. Be sure to see her performance in Opéra de Montreal’s La beauté du monde, a production that chronicles the epic rescue of artwork from the Louvre during World War II. The show runs until November 27!
To open its 50th anniversary season, Calgary Opera is presenting Bizet’s Carmen. The idea to do this opera for the anniversary came from former Artistic Director Bramwell Tovey, a much-appreciated figure on the Calgary musical scene who recently died from cancer. The...