12 Great Moments IN Canadian Opera
1 Irving Guttman Goes West
By BILL RANKIN
Irving Guttman’s seminal effort to bring professional-quality opera beyond its central Canadian preserve in the mid-20th century has earned him the honorific “father of opera in Western Canada.” Guttman left Montréal in 1960 to direct Carmen for the fledgling Vancouver Opera, and a year later he became the new company’s first artistic director, a post he held for 15 years. He lured eventual opera icons Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne to his 1963 Norma production (pictured), and he took that now-historic production across the Rockies to Edmonton before Edmonton even had a professional company. Three years later, he became Edmonton Opera’s artistic director, as well, beginning a 33-year stint in that city. As he had done in Vancouver, Guttman gave his new company a splash of glamour immediately, casting Beverley Sills, a still relative unknown, in her title role debut in Lucia di Lammermoor. He attracted future opera stars such as Samuel Ramey, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras to the Alberta capital. Over the course of his groundbreaking career, Guttman also led Manitoba and Regina Opera, and he was central in the development of some of Canada’s own opera stars, including Ben Heppner, Tracy Dahl and Judith Forst. Robert Dales, Guttman’s partner for 45 years, says Guttman’s success came down to the fact that “people liked working with him.”
2 Teresa Stratas and Jon Vickers Star at the Met
By PATRICK DILLON
It was a grand evening on September 28, 1965: the second night—and second new production—of the Metropolitan Opera’s final season in what would soon be dubbed “the old house,” and its first performance of since 1910, when Gustav Mahler led Tchaikovsky’s long-underappreciated masterwork with Emmy Destinn and Leo Slezak as the doomed Lisa and Gherman. But a mere two nights after her Met debut in October 1959, and he’d been Fidelio’s incarcerated Florestan two weeks after his own house debut, just three months after hers. Nor was it their first joint appearance there: she’d been Carmen’s pal Frasquita to his Don José and, in a single performance in January 1963, Nedda to his Canio in (pictured). It was the first time, though, that this alchemical partnership, or Canadian partnership, had spearheaded a new staging at the house, and Stratas and Vickers seized the occasion with alacrity. But when, in May 1966, as a 15-year-old, opera-addicted suburban Detroiter, I saw and heard their with the Met on tour, I was blissfully unaware of these statistics. All I knew then was that it was thrilling, just plain thrilling.
