Vol. LXI, No. 2

Opera Canada

Canada's only Magazine Dedicated Exclusively to Opera

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Opera Canada
FOUNDING EDITOR Ruby Mercer Volume LXI Number 1 Edition 244 $7.95 PUBLISHER Opera Canada Publications operacanada.ca BOARD OF DIRECTORS CHAIR: David Speers David Giles—Past Chair Indi Gopinathan Jason Howard Peter Hunt Timothy Laceby—Treasurer Robert
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Notebook
We are about to begin the most unusual opera season ever. Under normal circumstances, companies across Canada would be unveiling their season opening productions. As the comprehensive cross-Canada reports in this issue suggest, companies have respond
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Opera In The News
RICHARD COVELLO May 16, 1931 – July 17, 2020 Richard Covello, Opera Canada’s long-serving, Chicagobased contributor, passed away on July 17, 2020, at 89. A passionate lover of opera and the performing arts, Richard’s byline first appeared in the maga
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Robert Pomakov
After my plans for an in-person interview with the versatile Canadian bass Robert Pomakov fell victim to the coronavirus pandemic, Pomakov served a generous banquet of food for operatic thought during a telephone interview I conducted with him in ear
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Opera Canada Top 50
When Ruby Mercer founded Opera Canada in 1960, the existing opera business largely amounted to the Canadian Opera Company in the private sector, along with the established teaching institutions and our public broadcaster. The Canadian opera network t
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Florie Flourishes
Earlier this summer, I contacted Canadian soprano Florie Valiquette for an interview. At the time, she should have been at Glyndebourne making her debut there as Soeur Constance in a new Barrie Kosky production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.
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“The Sick Body Cannot Be ignored…”
Someday, a composer will announce plans for an opera about the coronavirus and inevitably, a host of questions will emerge: Will it be a Wagnerian-scaled epic, appropriate to the pandemic’s global reach? Or will it be a compact score, conveying the s
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20/21 Season Preview
Like all performing arts worldwide, opera in Canada has sustained the blow of a global pandemic that would have been unimaginable even a few months ago. Facing season cancellations, production postponements and a still-uncertain future, company heads
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Opera’s new NOISE
In the spring of 2020, amidst a global pandemic and in the wake of fresh outrage over the May 25th murder of George Floyd, something novel began to happen in Canada’s opera scene. For what really did feel like the first time, opera companies started
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Digital Shift
The coronavirus pandemic has made digital programming a prime concern for Canadian arts companies. Forced to find ways of reaching audiences within the constraints of social distancing guidelines, they have offered fans a wide array of selections, fr
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Opera At Home
THAÏS MASSENET Chandos CHSA 5258(2) Massenet’s 1894 opera about the Egyptian courtesan, Thaïs, who is converted to Christianity by the monk Athanaël, has a storied recording history. Three of the earliest feature great French sopranos of the 1950s: G
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The Final Word
We’ve all seen the pictures: Salzburg Festival defied the odds and put on two staged operatic productions this summer. The festival had a covid-testing clinic in situ, tight protocols for testing, masking, foot traffic, as well as who could work clos

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