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...
The Royal Conservatory announced today that it has appointed internationally celebrated Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka as Vocal Chair and Head of the Vocal Department of The Glenn Gould School (GGS), its acclaimed school of professional performance training for...
Tired out from the Holiday Season festivities? How about something frivolous, frothy and fun to get rid of those post-Christmas blues? It’s always nice to end the year—and 2018 has turned out to be quite the annus horribilis for the world—with some escapist...
Rent hikes of up to 160% by Victoria, BC's Royal & McPherson Theatre Society has already forced the Victoria Symphony to move half of its programming to the University of Victoria and could have serious budgetary repercussions for one of its other main tenants,...
Kopernikus (Rituel de la mort, 1978-79) was Claude Vivier’s only opera. Seen Dec. 4th at Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris, this production concludes Le Festival d'Automne à Paris 2018's series of five concerts dedicated to the work of the enigmatic Québecois composer....
San Francisco Opera’s It’s a Wonderful Life (seen Nov. 20th), Jake Heggie’s latest work for the operatic stage, might be called a musical—and he would not object. He declares that he has been writing them for years. Still, his prior successes with Dead Man Walking...
Bavarian State Opera’s new production of Otello (seen Nov. 28th) would seem to have all the ingredients for a compelling take on Verdi’s distillation of Shakespeare’s tragedy: top soloists Jonas Kaufmann (Otello), Anja Harteros (Desdemona) and Gerald Finley (Iago);...
It’s no mere tilting at windmills that Mozart’s Don Giovanni, rising from its own grave 231 years since its premiere in Prague in 1787, shudders with even greater resonance in today’s brave new #MeToo world, where modern day moguls fueled by their own narcissistic...