Table of contents for Summer 2016 in Opera Canada

Even taking every opportunity to live facets of my life over again following paths that seem so much more reasonable with benefit of age and hindsight, the one bit of history I emphatically would not change— and, indeed, would happily relive—was mine as a music-loving teen in 1960s Britain. Maybe the geography wasn’t so important and I’d have been just as well off in this respect in North America. But still, what remains vividly in my mind is the joy of discovery as one amazing musical door after another opened through that decade. Mostly, these discoveries were made through LP discs, radio and television since I only enjoyed occasional access to the amenities of the big city from my small West Midlands town. There was the discovery of Mahler through…

Toronto-born maestro Yves Abel was almost as enthusiastic about his first visit to Seville last May as he was about Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, which he had come to conduct. “It’s so amazing, the city of 100 operas with all those references to Il barbiere di Siviglia and Carmen as I walk around.” But for this trip, he had little time to get more than a flavour of the Andalusian city because the Donizetti demanded all his attention. Although it’s a very familiar piece—and a favourite of Abel’s—it cannot, he insists, ever be taken for granted. The conductor must inject imagination into the phrasing and shaping so that the characters come to life, he explains, you can’t just approach Donizetti by simply using piano and forte. And the orchestra has…

March 23, 2016, marked a most happy milestone for Sondra Radvanovsky Mar. 24 marked another, the more lavishly touted by a PR kilometre or two. That evening, the Metropolitan Opera presented its first production of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux, and with its tragic Elisabetta—Elizabeth I of England—Radvanovsky became the first soprano in Met annals to win the Triple Crown of the composer’s “Tudor trilogy”: Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Devereux. It’s a feat long identified with Beverly Sills, who claimed the crown on record and for New York City Opera in the early 1970s. Radvanovsky (in the opinion of someone who saw both) acted them at least as well and, with the apter voice, sang them better. Her three queens were an immense personal triumph. How did she feel when, a…

CDs DINORAH Meyerbeer CPO: 555 014-2 Meyerbeer’s 1859 pastoral comic opera Dinorah (also known as Le pardon de Ploërmel) has enjoyed only a very small number of recordings over the years, and has disappeared from the opera house, where it was once a favourite of such singers as Amelita Galli-Curci, Luisa Tetrazzini and others. Yet on the basis of this sparkling recording, made in conjunction with a live performance at the Berlin Philharmonie in 2014, it has much to offer—delightful tunes, a warm and folksy score, bouncy choruses featuring the likes of villagers, woodcutters and goatherds, and a busy role for the title character, who is called upon to sing some challenging coloratura. The opera, set in the Brittany town of Ploërmel, relates a wild story of the destruction of…

Appointments In September, Patrick Corrigan took over as General Director of Opéra de Montréal, succeeding Pierre Dufour, who left the company after 16 years to pursue other career interests. Corrigan took up his new post after 16 years in various management positions at Pacific Opera Victoria. Originally from Montreal and bilingual, he began his career in 1990 as a singer. In 1996, he joined POV as Stage Manager and from 1998-2000 also worked at the Victoria Conservatory of Music as House Manager of its Alex Goolden Hall and Program Manager of its Opera Studio. In 2000, he took over as Director of Marketing and Development at POV, holding that position until his appointment as the company’s CEO in 2010. From 2012-2015, he served as Chair of Opera.ca, Canada’s national opera…

Director Atom Egoyan had a rare block of free time on his schedule this fall. September got off to the usual madcap start with the two-week round of meetings, movie showings and schmoozing at the Toronto International Film Festival, in part fulfilling his role as a Governor of TIFF’s Talent Lab, a forum for young filmmakers to show and pitch their films. After that, he was originally slated to head to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to mount his latest opera, a new production of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. But that trip and the whole enterprise fell apart when the directors of Gotham Chamber Opera, New York’s leading independent opera presenter and producer of the Britten, abruptly shut the company down for financial reasons late last year. The…

Compiled by B. Krsek. Legend: C: conductor; D: stage director; Des: designer; Ctms: costumes; Lght: lighting; Chor: choreographer; *new production; **world premiere; ***national premiere; Op: opening date; M: matinée. Information correct as of Sept 6th, 2016. Programs subject to change. Calgary Opera. 403-262-7286. calgaryopera.com. Die Fledermaus (J. Strauss). C: Gerrard; D: Leyshon. Dibblee, T. Dahl, Burgess, Honeywell. Nov 19, 23, 25. Canadian Children’s Opera Company (Toronto). 416-366-0467. canadianchildrensopera.com. Toronto Symphony – Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton. Oct 29, 30. Winter Celebrations. Nov 27. Toronto Symphony – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings in Concert. Dec 01, 02, 03. Canadian Opera Company (Toronto). 416-363-6671. coc.ca. *Norma (Bellini). C: Lord; D: Newbury; Des: Korins; Ctsm: Jahn; Lght: Wood. Radvanovsky/van den Heever, Thomas, Leonard, Ivashchenko.…

Pianist Rachel Andrist is still front-and-centre as a performer—she and soprano Jane Leibel collaborated just last May at the University of Regina (alma mater for both Saskatchewan-born artists)—but her work on stage is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. She’s ever busier behinds the scenes as teacher, coach, orchestral pianist and mentor to a host of seasoned and emerging artists. This summer, her work with young artists took her from Highlands Opera Studio in Ontario’s Haliburton cottage country to summer intensive sessions at Dalhousie and Mount Allison Universities. To cap it all, she teamed up with mezzo Laura Tucker in late August to mount a four-day audition boot camp in Toronto, ending with a grueling, 8 ½-hour recording session in a hot church to generate audition DVDs for the…

Mexican-American tenor Ernesto Ramírez followed a rather circuitous trajectory to a career in opera, starting out as an orchestra musician. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, he comes from a very musical family. His father studied piano and had his own folk band, his grandfather played the saxophone, and three uncles were orchestral players: “One was Principal Oboe in the Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco for 30 years; the other two played piccolo and bass clarinet in Orquesta del Teatro Bellas Artes.” It was only natural for the young Ernesto to follow in their footsteps, studying clarinet and subsequently playing with both of his uncles’ orchestras. But his destiny turned out quite differently. Also blessed with a good voice and introduced to the art of bel canto by Professor Engelberto Águilar, Ramírez switched…

“I believe in the importance of music and of a musical culture. Music remains, for me, one of the foremost realizations of humanity. Music is not only a universal language, but a language of peace. It is an instrument of rapprochement and not of division. It may seem naive, but, for me, music carries a message of peace that counter-balances the horrors around us. Music has always been and remains a magical world.” There, in a nutshell, you have Grégoire Legendre. A man of ideals, of ideas and of humanity. He has been General and Artistic Director of Opéra de Québec since 2003, but, thankfully, is the antithesis of the modern technocrat and a musician through and through. Born into a musical family in Quebec City (his mother was a…