Reviews
Atom Egoyan
Seven Veils TIFF Avant-Première at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Seven Veils TIFF Avant-Première at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
For opera fans who are also movie buffs, a highly anticipated event of the 2023 TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) is Seven Veils, a new film written and directed by Canadian opera director and filmmaker Atom Egoyan. It is based on his 27-year-old production...
Manitoba Underground Opera
Castor et Pollux “an all-immersive, late summer treat”
Manitoba Underground Opera took audiences from heaven to hell this summer, with Rameau’s Castor et Pollux, its second production of its Odyssey 2023 festival. This year’s line-up wraps up with Verdi’s The Corsair being staged on deck of the historic Nonsuch ship...
Maritime Concert Opera
La Traviata Verdi “A major triumph”
When La Traviata was first performed in Venice in 1853 it was a major disappointment. This was the age of Wagner and Verdi and big operatic drama. Verdi had disregarded the moral and artistic convention of his time, as well as the expectations of his audience; instead...
OrpheusPDX
Il Re Pastore Mozart “Whyte created a stellar Aminta”
Operagoers may have been tempted to think that an opera from the likes of a teenage Mozart would be a lightweight thing, but in the hands of director Dan Rigazzi, Il Re Pastore (“The Royal Shepherd”) offered a fresh look at what it means to rule and who should do it....
Halifax Summer Opera Festival
Serse and La Jolie Parfumeuse “Brought great pleasure to the audience”
This summer, in its 17th season, Halifax Summer Opera Festival brought enthusiastic young singers to town again to produce two double-cast fully staged operas: Serse (1738) by G.F. Handel and La Jolie Parfumeuse (1873) by Jacques Offenbach, the latter apparently a...
Highlands Opera Studio
Regeneration “stunning example of what collaboration between artists of different ethnicities, ages, and styles can produce”
On August 17 and 19, at the Northern Lights Performing Arts Pavilion in Haliburton, Ontario, patrons of Highlands Opera Studio witnessed a remarkable artistic creation. Regeneration, a multi-textured work designed and directed by Valerie Kuinka, was inspired by the...
Festival D’Aix-en-Provence
Così fan tutte “Russell Braun is a consummate actor and an artist who continues to astound with his range of roles”
Mozart's Così fan tutte is emblematic of the Festival d'Aix en Provence. It's the opera that opened the festival in 1948 and has been one of the most frequently performed over the 75 years of the festival. It has also received the most prestigious treatment, with the...
Brott Opera
La traviata Anne-Marie “MacIntosh is ready to unleash her Violetta on the world”
On July 13 and 14, Brott Opera presented La traviata in the 470 seat Peller Hall at Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre. Director of Development for Brott music, Jacqui Templeton Muir, mentioned in her opening remarks that it was the Peller Hall’s “baptism by opera”, the...
Boston Early Music Festival
Caccini Alcina “It could well have been written for Mireille Lebel”
Few operas can have enjoyed a splashier premiere than Francesca Caccini’s Alcina. In the Florence of February 1625, the Medici court gathered at the grand villa of Maria Magdalena, widow of Grand Duke Cosimo II, to welcome the visiting Prince Wladyslaw of Poland, to...
![The Little Opera Company The Magic Flute: The Trials of Tamino and Pamina “a testament to [John] Greer’s sensitive artistry”](https://operacanada.ca/wp-content/smush-webp/2023/07/IMG_9609-400x250.jpg.webp)
The Little Opera Company The Magic Flute: The Trials of Tamino and Pamina “a testament to [John] Greer’s sensitive artistry”
The Little Opera Company closed its 2022/23 season with a bite-sized version of Mozart’s great singspiel, Die Zauberflöte, featuring Canadian composer John Greer’s compact, 90-minute adaptation titled The Magic Flute: The Trials of Tamino and Pamina performed in English.
![Boston Early Music Festival Circé “no one knows the nuances of French baroque style better than [Karina Gauvin] does.”](https://operacanada.ca/wp-content/smush-webp/2023/06/2023-06-03-Circe-dress_8-1-400x250.jpg.webp)
Boston Early Music Festival Circé “no one knows the nuances of French baroque style better than [Karina Gauvin] does.”
“Wort oder Ton?”: which has the upper hand, the words or the music? That centuries-old debate, as immortalized in Richard Strauss’s Capriccio, popped into my head in the midst of the Boston Early Music Festival’s Circé (11 June), a tragédie en musique first performed...
Canadians triumph in the UK
It was a banner month of June for Canadian singers in the UK. First, mezzo Simone McIntosh proudly represented the Maple Leaf at the 2023 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. She delivered a stellar aria round in the competition’s opening heat on June 11–a...