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...
There was a time when ‘opera’ implied a notion of music that unabashedly included the expectation of actual melodies, and Engelbert Humperdinck’s 1893 treatment of the macabre and ultimately triumphant fairy tale Hansel and Gretel is a marvel in that tradition....
The Canadian Opera Company announced their 19/20 season at a special, ‘season reveal’ event at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on Feb. 4th. To kick off the season, the COC presents Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot in late September. Conductor Carlo...
To see or not to see: that’s the question posed by Metropolitan Opera’s intriguing pairing of Iolanta and Bluebeard’s Castle. The eponymous princess of Tchaikovsky’s opera, blind from birth, has been zealously shielded from the harder truths of her condition by her...
On Tuesday morning, The International Opera Awards announced their 2019 finalists, and several Canadian artists and productions were on the list! The gala event will be held at London’s Sadler’s Wells on April 29, 2019, celebrating achievement in opera around the...
What makes a man? His wins? His losses? His mistakes and regrets? His memories? Is it in how he sees himself, or in how others see him? These are some of the questions the audience is left with at the end of Champion, jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s 2013...
Best productions of Elektra have a lead singer who can make the jagged vocal score sound effortlessly smooth and a director who can finesse the extremes of Greek tragedy into something psychologically believable for the 21st-century viewer. James Robinson’s Canadian...
A theatrical hybrid is making its way to the stage in late January and it’s not holding back. Tapestry Opera and Theatre Passe Muraille present the world premiere of Hook Up, a story of the complex freedom and responsibility of being a freshman, away from home for the...
The recent cold snap in Toronto isn’t bothering Wilhelm Schwinghammer. “I’m used to this being from Bavaria!” he says, his deep voice rumbling with a laugh. The busy bass is currently in the midst of rehearsals with the Canadian Opera Company for Elektra (opening...
OPERA America has recently announced the 2019 participants for their highly competitive Leadership Intensive program, including Canada’s own Jaime Martino of Tapestry Opera and Rebecca Hass of Pacific Opera Victoria. These women are two of 16 participants selected...