When Richard Bradshaw died suddenly in 2007, he left a giant-sized hole in the landscape of opera in Canada. During his tenure as Artistic, and then General Director, of the Canadian Opera Company from 1994 to 2007, he raised the company to a height of popularity, internal integrity and international visibility it had never known before. No one expected that the void Bradshaw left could be filled. Bradshaw was the man who raised the COC Orchestra to the highest standards, who mounted the first Canadian Ring Cycle and who in 2006 brought the long-held dream of Canada’s first purpose-built opera house to completion.
After such heroic efforts, the most one could hope for was a successor who would prevent the gap left by Bradshaw from widening and build on his legacy. In 2008 a COC search committee, with the aid of an international executive search firm, chose German-born Alexander Neef as its new General Director. Only 34 at the time, Neef had been casting director at L’Opera national de Paris for the previous four years under its then-Director, Gerard Mortier. Out of a long list of 40-50 names, Neef was the unanimous choice of the search committee and search company. Although Neef had never led a company before, he had worked as an administrator at Salzburg Festival, Ruhrtriennale and New York City Opera, all under Mortier. Now that Neef is about to finish his tenure at the COC, the time is ripe to evaluate his influence.
When the public met Neef in 2009 at a press conference outlining the first season he had programmed, his personality appeared to be just the opposite of Bradshaw’s. Where Bradshaw was ebullient and charismatic, Neef was restrained and businesslike. Where Bradshaw seemed to enjoy taking questions, Neef seemed annoyed by them. It was no surprise that he subsequently gave up holding press conferences and the COC switched to a new format, announcing their seasons at larger public events where Neef took no questions.
In a CBC interview published not long after he was hired, Neef outlined three key points in his vision for the in particular. During his tenure, Neef accomplished all three points to varying degrees. He would even have seen the COC finally perform its first in Sept. 2020 if the Covid pandemic had not caused its cancellation.
