It's the understatement of the century to say that 2020 was...action-packed. Amid it all came an important piece of good news: Opera Canada magazine turned 60! It's an extraordinary thing for an opera-centric magazine to reach its sixth decade of publication, and...
City Opera Vancouver presents its first online opera, with The Human Voice, an adaptation of the 1928 play by Cocteau and the 1958 opera by Poulenc. In this contemporary take on La voix humaine, a woman's one-sided telephone conversation with her lover changes gender...
Hi, Canadian opera lovers! Jenna here. You might know me from Opera Canada's social media channels, where I've been spending time over the last year or so as the magazine's Social Media Manager. Starting this month, you'll hear from me a lot more, as I'm taking on a...
Following a 2020 season of digital and live shows that reached over 5,000 pairs of eyes and offered work for Canadian artists, Tapestry Opera’s Winter 2021 lineup continues to offer innovation to Toronto's opera landscape. Founded in 1979, Tapestry is an...
“Collaboration” might be the most important word in Perryn Leech’s vocabulary. The new General Director of the Canadian Opera Company comes from the behind-the-scenes world of opera production, having spent his formative years learning the literal and figurative...
As 2020 draws to a close, the Opera Canada team offers their personal reflections on the most idiosyncratic year in the magazine’s 60 year history. Leah Borts-Kuperman, Editorial Assistant, Opera Canada Relative to the opera world, I’m a newbie. I saw my first La...
The most prolific operatic composer of the postwar period, Hans Werner Henze's contribution to the music theatre canon includes some 30 works encompassing a wide variety of musical styles and literary topics. His 1990 opera Das verattene Meer is based on Yukio...
An old professor of mine startled me recently, asking, “What’s it like singing Messiah as a Jewish person?” I was taken aback, never having given the matter much thought. “It’s beautiful music and story-telling, like all my other repertoire,” I replied, perplexed at...
Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors was the first opera written specifically for American television, premiering on NBC on Christmas Eve, 1951. It became a Christmas Eve tradition until the mid-60s when, in a dispute, Menotti forbade its production and...
I feel I must preface this review with the confession that I have never--not ever--seen a holiday-season Messiah. I am grateful that Messiah/Complex, a filmed collaboration between the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) and Against the Grain (AtG) Theatre, seen Dec....
Despite repeated coronavirus lockdowns, social distancing rules and a climate of apprehension, Opera Atelier and its fearless co-artistic directors Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg were determined to continue their 35th season regardless. They made...
The November 2020 opening of Orchestre Classique de Montréal’s production of Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell, and Kimberly Reed’s chamber opera As One opened up another frustrating conversation about where transgender people belong in the performing arts. Navigating...