It’s the time of year for season announcements and the Pacific Opera Victoria 19/20 details have been released! The season opens with Puccini’s last completed stage work, Il trittico. Rarely staged anywhere, but especially in Canada, this trio of one-act operas...
We are only in the second month, but already, one of the most significant Canadian classical music events of the New Year is history. On Feb. 20th, in a glittery gala concert at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, the musical-operatic community...
Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il primo omicidio (1707), recounts the first murder in the history of mankind. Cain and Abel are the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, a farmer, becomes enraged when the Lord accepts the offering of his brother Abel, a shepherd, in preference to his...
Every opera I have ever seen staged by the director/designer team of Renaud Doucet and André Barbe has been visually memorable and Vancouver Opera’s new La Bohème (seen Feb. 16th) is no exception. Interestingly, their production (originally for Scottish Opera and...
It’s Valentine’s Day and what better thing to do than watch poor, consumptive Violetta Valéry take a risky leap into love with young Alfredo Germont, only to be forced to leave him by his hidebound father, then tenderly reconcile with her beloved mere minutes before...
The 19/20 Vancouver Opera season has recently been announced, and here's what you can look forward to! Kicking off their season in October is Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata. This will be the fourth stop for a production inspired by the decadent music hall scene of 1920s...
An operatic twist on a classic tale is making its way to the stage and it comes with a bite. The fickle fanged creature that is Dracula is set for its world premiere on Feb. 15th in Cambridge, ON before heading to Waterloo and Guelph. Composer and Artistic Director of...
The final Mozart-Da Ponte collaboration, 1790’s Cosí fan tutte, o sia La Scuola degli Amanti (Women Are Like That, or A School for Lovers) is hard to stage effectively. Atom Egoyan’s 2014 production, revived on Feb. 6th at the Canadian Opera Company, doesn’t quite get...
Through a series of events beginning Feb. 11, 2019, Toronto will be celebrating the life, art and work of Jessye Norman. The legendary American opera star is the winner of the twelfth Glenn Gould Prize. The prize is awarded to an individual who has made a unique and...
Big news for Edmonton Opera—on Feb. 2nd they announced their 2019/20 season at opening night of their recent, new production of Hansel and Gretel. To kick off their 2019/20 season, Rigoletto comes to the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium on October 19, 22 and 25,...
Experiencing two concert presentations of Wagner’s Die Walküre within a week on two different continents presents a unique set of challenges. Along with the exhaustion of travel, how does one adjust to the diverse artistries of soloists, orchestras, and conductors?...
The first thing to know about the 2019-2020 Canadian Opera Company season is this: Parsifal is coming to Toronto, but not quite yet. The lauded Metropolitan Opera/Opéra National de Lyon/COC co-production, which premiered in Lyon in 2012 and New York in 2013, has been...