“My voice teacher was verbally abusing me,” explains Emily Bilton, drag artist and opera alum. "I ended up failing my third-year recital by 2 percent. I had to get a 65 and I got a 63. And the only explanation they could give me was that my tone wasn’t what they...
Hollywood film director James Gray, winner of the Golden Lion for his film “Little Odessa” (1994) and nominated several times for the Palme d’Or in Cannes, claims that directing Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro was one of the “artistic highlights of his career.” It also...
Against the Grain's (AtG) Figaro’s Wedding takes the Mozart opera off the stage and to an events hall at Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, going all in on the wedding of the century! Like a dork’s day at a Renaissance fair, the roll-out for this production and the subsequent...
Opera Niagara’s fourth season opened with La bohème, given four performances at Southminster United Church in Niagara Falls. Bohème is consistently one of the most performed operas in the world—this season alone saw the bohemians' return to AtG and Calgary Opera—and...
Tapestry Opera’s experimental opera series, TAP:EX is back. Conceived as an annual opportunity for operatic experimentation, this year’s installment, Augmented Opera, showcases Tapestry’s love of Black Mirror. Hosted by Alphabet Inc.'s Sidewalk Labs and with some...
Opera Mariposa is one of the landmarks of the indie opera scene in Vancouver, and their 2019 mainstage production is Puccini's slapstick one-acter, Gianni Schicchi. Due to the short 50 minute run time, the company paired the comedy with a number of different opera...
The music came to a sudden stop and the curtain fell onto the stage with mechanical precision. As the choir hummed, a heart-rate monitor blared out a sinister flat-line and for a moment I thought I’d died. Sadly though I was still very much alive. When the lights...
The soprano may be the star of Lucia di Lammermoor, but it was the gentlemen who took the night at the Nov. 9th premiere of Opéra de Montréal’s latest take on Donizetti's classic. I’ve never been in favour of casting light lyric coloratura sopranos in meaty bel canto...
Productions of Don Giovanni and its troublesome topic of seduction seem to elicit a variety of mixed feelings from both directors and their audiences. Mozart's famous dramma giocoso, not that long ago, would have been presented typically as a mythic tale about a...
At long last, the Canadian Opera Company's Ensemble Studio Competition has drawn to a close, and with it Canada's top young opera singer has been found: Midori Marsh, the super soprano from Cleveland, Ohio took home both the First Prize ($5000) and the Audience Choice...
The Heart’s Obsession: An Intimate Biography of Newfoundland Songstress Georgina Stirling. By Tonia Evans Cianciulli with Calvin D. Evans; 342 pp. ISBN: sc 978-1-77117-759-7, $24.95. St. John’s, Newfoundland: Flanker Press (2019) www.flankerpress.com When we think...
In a profession known for its impermanence, a near 30-year career in opera is a cause for celebration. Since his professional debut in 1991 at Pacific Opera Victoria, tenor Benjamin Butterfield has enjoyed an enviable career both at home and abroad, in a wide-ranging...