The Little Opera Company wrapped up its 2017/18 season with British theatre director Peter Brook’s radical adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen. His distilled version, La Tragédie de Carmen, pierces the heart of Prosper Mérimée’s original novella with the rapier acuity of a...
Fourteen years after its first run at the Palais Garnier in 2004, French director Laurent Pelly's double bill: L'heure espagnole and Gianni Schicchi, has been unpacked, moved across town to the immense Bastille venue, and re-staged without a crease (seen May 30). It...
Last night at Montreal’s Maison symphonique, the six finalists in the 2018 Concours Musical International de Montréal’s (CMIM) Aria competition presented their final programs. As in the previous two semi-final rounds, they were accompanied by British conductor Graeme...
Last night at Montreal’s Maison symphonique, the second group of six singers who advanced through the first round of the 2018 Concours Musical International de Montréal’s (CMIM) Aria competition got their turn. They were accompanied by British conductor Graeme Jenkins...
Last night at Montreal’s Maison symphonique, six of the singers who advanced through the first round of the 2018 Concours Musical International de Montréal’s (CMIM) Aria competition each presented a selection of arias. They were accompanied by British conductor Graeme...
Today at 3 p.m. in Montreal’s Bourgie Hall, the four singers and pianists who advanced through the first two rounds of the 2018 Concours Musical International de Montréal’s (CMIM) Art Song competition each presented a mini recital for the section’s finale. Having beat...
Vancouver Opera’s production of Eugene Onegin, the mainstay of the 2018 Vancouver Opera Festival, is nothing if not a surfeit of vocal riches. Three of the four lead singers are Russian and making their VO debuts. All are perfectly cast—consummate actors and...
There are operas whose musical and dramatic brilliance does not show signs of ever running out, hundreds of years into their production history. Then there are operas which make you wonder if the art form is deader than a museum piece.
Toronto Operetta Theatre ends its 17/18 season with the popular French operetta, La belle Hélène (The Beautiful Helen) by Jacques Offenbach. Now in its 33rd season, TOT shows are typically drawn from the standard repertoire, but with a surprise or two thrown in every...
The creators of recent mashups of history and science fiction or literature and fantasy, such as the regrettable film, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, may think they invented a genre. But Handel beat them to it by more than 300 years. Rinaldo, the composer’s first...
In each issue of Opera Canada our 'New Production' feature highlights a significant new staging or newly composed work. For our spring 2018 issue, due in your mailbox and on newsstands the first week in May, we highlight the new opera by James Rolfe (music) and Morris...
It took a while to understand why the Edmonton Opera season-ending production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni was set at a grim, derelict industrial address, where menace might certainly be imagined. However, Director Oriol Tomas's concept was the macho world of the...