Arrigo Boito, the redoubtable 19th-century Italian poet and Verdi’s best known librettist, skillfully distilled and adapted Shakespeare’s Othello for the operatic stage but also, unfortunately for us today, flattened it into a morality play. Gone is Shakespeare’s Act...
Giacomo Puccini’s warhorse La Bohème is a tale about young artists’ whirlwind lives in the centre of the artistic world of 19th-century Paris. Audiences experience a window into their passion, ambition, and their poverty. Veiled behind Canadian Opera Company’s (COC)...
Early on in his career, a suggestion was made to tenor Russell Thomas that he only sing Mozart. “I thought that was the biggest insult,” he remembers, laughing. It turned out to be good advice. “When I was in college I sang a lot of repertoire that was probably...
There has been little if no question over the years that Mozart's opera seria, Idomeneo (1781), is considered to be the composer's masterpiece in the genre. But something new seemed to pop out at Toronto’s Ed Mirvish Theatre on April 6 that I had initially missed...
Against the Grain Theatre (AtG) opened Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus: A Ritual Opera for the Dead on Apr. 5 at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille in a staging that featured a multi-disciplinary ensemble, roaming orchestra, and some very moving music. The work is one of the...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Not your usual night at the opera—be among the first to discover Canada’s newest opera talent! [/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image="11489"...
The recent passing of philanthropist Roger D. Moore sent shock waves through the Toronto opera scene. A beloved figure within the Canadian classical world, Moore was the recipient of a 2010 Opera Canada—‘The Rubies’ award, an honour which, as former Opera Canada...
In 1801, Goethe wrote to Felix Mendelssohn that “where nothing new is actually produced, an art cannot make itself vividly felt.” Innovation and impact are ideas Canadian composer Claude Vivier took to heart. Born in 1948 to unknown parents,Vivier studied at the...
This morning, the 19/20 Calgary Opera season details were released, the first under the new senior leadership team of Artistic Director, Bramwell Tovey, and Managing Director and CEO, Heather Kitchen. Here's our season rundown: The 19/20 Calgary season opens in...
Manitoba Opera recently released details of their upcoming 19/20 season—their 47th— featuring an American classic and an iconic French opera. The season kicks off in November with the Manitoba premiere of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah. Loosely based on the Apocryphal tale...
The lives of infamous arts patrons Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are making their way to the opera stage and they’re bringing the City of Lights with them. L’Atelier lyrique de l'Opéra de Montréal presents Twenty-Seven, from March 23-31, as a part of the L’Opéra...
Of course it is a gross simplification to say that Donizetti is all about the singing; but the focus is undeniably on beautiful, exciting and agile voices. And Welsh National Opera’s 2019 presentation of Roberto Devereux, which I saw in Birmingham on Mar. 8th,...