Nowadays, it seems even stagings of comic operas are enamored with minimalism, skewing toward a neutral palette of black, white, and grey. So how refreshing it was to revisit Catalonian director Joan Font and his maximalist Cenerentola, which explodes with all the...
It would be difficult to imagine a more hard-working company than Britain’s Opera North. To Nottingham’s Theatre Royal they brought touring productions of six short operas split into double bills – on the two nights I saw (November 2 and 3), performed with real...
At Zoomer Hall (the performing space of 96.3 New Classical FM) on Nov. 6, I had the pleasure of attending a concert involving ten young artists, under the auspices of IRCPA, short for International Resource Centre for Performing Artists. For the avid opera fan,...
Is Canada’s own ‘Merry’ Widow really Canadian at all? Marketed as Canada’s own ‘Merry’ Widow, referencing Franz Lehar’s famous German operetta The Merry Widow, Toronto Operetta Theatre’s single performance of Calixa Lavallée’s The Widow (presented in hounour of...
Missing, a co-commission by City Opera Vancouver and Pacific Opera Victoria, opened at Vancouver’s York Theatre on Nov. 3 and moves to Victoria for an already sold-out run on the 17th. A courageous commission, yes, but also canny: COV and POV must have put out feelers...
On Nov. 1, 2017, the Canadian Opera Company presented its annual Centre Stage Gala featuring the Ensemble Studio Competition. The order and wording of this title is not without significance. The evening is as much about the glittering, fundraising dinner that takes...
On Mon. Oct. 31, Opera Canada Publications held its 17th annual Opera Canada Awards, a.k.a. the 'Rubies'. Each year, this event honours three outstanding contributors to opera in Canada, or those who further the cause of Canadians working in opera abroad. The 2017...
Canada has produced few large-scale, ‘grand’ operas, and Edmonton Opera, just recently emerging from almost fatal financial difficulties, has previously staged just one main stage 21st century opera, John Estacio’s Filumena. Les Feluettes (Lilies), which centres on a...
To open its 17/18 farewell season on October 21, Toronto Masque Theatre presented a double bill of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Aeneas and Dido, a new work with music by James Rolfe and libretto by André Alexis. Specializing in the artistic fusion of music,...
Ten young professional singers have been selected to perform in Singing Stars: The Next Generation, Nov. 6 at Zoomer Hall, Toronto, presented by the International Resource Centre for Performing Artists, a service organisation for Canada’s musicians. The 10 singers are...
Smalltown Canada setting Donizetti’s rustic melodramma giocoso (comic opera) The Elixir of Love returned to the Canadian Opera Company on October 11 for the first time since 1999, in a new-to-Toronto production by American director James Robinson. The action has been...
Richard Strauss’s Arabella (1933) had its triumphant Canadian premiere last night, opening the Canadian Opera Company’s 17/18 season. It is one of those operas that comes saddled with a ‘reputation,' often viewed as less than top drawer Strauss; hindered by creaky...