Vol. LX, No. 4

Opera Canada

Canada's only Magazine Dedicated Exclusively to Opera

Opera Canada1 min read
Opera Canada
FOUNDING EDITOR Ruby Mercer BOARD OF DIRECTORS CHAIR: David Speers David Giles—Past Chair Indi Gopinathan Peter Hunt Timothy Laceby—Treasurer Robert Morassutti—Vice Chair Rev. Edward Jackman (Honourary) Gianmarco Segato (ex officio) ADVISORY COUNCIL
Opera Canada3 min read
Notebook
When we sent our Spring 2020 issue off to press in early February, the coronavirus was largely confined to China and Italy. Cancellations of performances had begun in Italy, but the full-on, worldwide devastation of the pandemic was still largely unf
Opera Canada12 min read
Letters from Home
SOPRANO/COMPOSER How I am feeling through all of this changes by the minute! There is so much to deal with and digest in this situation, and very little to distract from it. Each feeling seems to have layers of other emotions attached to it. It’s lik
Opera Canada7 min read
Letter from Wormsley
The 2020 summer opera festival season in the United Kingdom is on hold. Glyndebourne, The Grange, Opera Holland Park, and Grange Park Opera have all cancelled their planned seasons in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Garsington Opera, founded in 19
Opera Canada9 min read
MICHÈLE LOSIER kicks into HIGH GEAR
Canadian mezzo-soprano Michèle Losier’s recent assumptions of major roles have consistently been intellectually rich, emotionally committed and vocally enthralling, earning her the highest accolades. Of Losier’s May 2019 Idamante at La Scala, Der Ope
Opera Canada17 min read
Vancouver Opera’s tumultuous decade
Much has changed since Opera Canada last profiled Vancouver Opera (VO) just over a decade ago in Robert Jordan’s 2009 article entitled “Vancouver Opera at fifty: celebrating a half-century of innovation and growth.” Unlike then, this time VO company
Opera Canada2 min read
Charles Barber, Nancy Hermiston & Ian Rye On Vancouver Opera’s Vital Role In The West Coast Opera Community
“Like everyone else,” says Charles Barber, Conductor and Artistic Director of City Opera Vancouver, which commissions and presents chamber opera in venues around Vancouver, including the troubled Downtown Eastside, “I want to see Vancouver Opera thri
Opera Canada8 min read
The Blurry Distinction Between OPERA & MUSICAL THEATRE
Porgy and Bess is both an opera and a Broadway musical. Its fame on both opera stages and Broadway mirrors the success its composer, George Gershwin, enjoyed in classical music circles, with renowned symphonic works like “Rhapsody in Blue,” as well a
Opera Canada3 min read
Singing Styles With Mark Daboll
OC: What’s the most important pillar you consider when training voice with any student? MD: The biggest pillar for me is ease. Period. By ease, I really mean physical ease. It’s going to vary from style to style, but you want to see how long you can
Opera Canada9 min read
Canada’s Opera Wordsmith
One of your jobs as a librettist is to inspire a composer to write really awesome music,” says Royce Vavrek, the Canadian librettist and playwright currently making extraordinary waves in today’s opera scene. “I strive to find words and phrases that
Opera Canada8 min read
Quarantined On The Continent
Director Renaud Doucet and designer Andre Barbe were on the cusp of opening their new production of Pelléas et Mélisande at Teatro Regio di Parma when they were forced to flee. The production, which was to feature Canadian baritone Phillip Addis in t
Opera Canada21 min read
Pandemic Spring
On Feb. 23rd, Teatro alla Scala announced a brief suspension of its season. It was a prudent decision: the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths in Italy had been climbing throughout February, with Milan and Lombardy emerging the early epicenter o
Opera Canada15 min read
Opera in Review
English cellist Jacqueline du Pre burst onto the music scene in the 1960s. In 1965, at the age of 20, she made a recording of Elgar’s cello concerto which is still the standard against which all others are judged. In 1967, she converted to Judaism an
Opera Canada12 min read
Opera At Home
HANDEL CPO 5555 205-2 This recording of Handel’s very first opera, penned and premiered in Hamburg when he was still a teenager, shows the work to be much more than an interesting curiosity. In the hands of the 33-member Boston Early Music Festival O
Opera Canada3 min read
The Fallout Thus Far
Things are looking dire out there. Before all this, did artists really ever think about how their livelihoods are directly linked to mass gatherings? I’ve considered the ways the arts world could be endangered—funding cuts, mostly—but never the parti

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