Table of contents for Vol. LX, No. 1 in Opera Canada

A perfect confluence of timing and events means we’re able to bring you a surfeit of reports from summer opera festivals, both national and international, in this issue. From the larger-than-usual Canadian contingent at Santa Fe Opera, to the latest Regietheater from Bayreuth, as well as the important opportunities given to emerging artists in Edmonton and Banff—you can vicariously experience the delights of this summer’s opera season. And don’t forget to check out operacanada.ca where you’ll find features on the Halifax Summer Opera Festival, Manitoba Underground Opera, Highlands Opera Studio, as well as rising Canadian bass-baritone Joel Allison’s summer in Salzburg. Offstage, things have been no less newsworthy as the opera world continues to come to grips with #MeToo. On Aug. 16th, Associated Press published accusations of sexual harassment by…

Identity as a theme is not new to opera. It has been, and is being, explored by the art form both onstage and off, in ways both narrative and non-narrative. Identity, specifically as it relates to preconceived notions of binary identities within gender, is now being openly challenged in opera. Does Carmen always have to be a sexy vamp? Is it a necessary given that Don Giovanni be a macho lady-killer? These questions sit close to (if not within) the heart of how we perceive and understand opera and force us to re-examine long-held, frequently unconscious notions of identity and presentation. They cause us to rethink ideas relating to our understanding or experience of opera and its broader place within 21st-century culture. This re-examination was underlined by the casting of baritone…

CANADA BANFF The premiere of Veronika Krausas and André Alexis’ Ghost Opera played to a sold out audience at the Banff Centre’s 950-seat Eric Harvie Theatre on May 24th. The collaboration between the Centre, Calgary Opera and the Calgary-based Old Trout Puppet Workshop featured Calgary Opera’s eight emerging artists, eleven musicians and a host of puppeteers. The 95-minute piece, which tells an ancient haunted house story uncovered by Canadian novelist Alexis, was presented as a dramma giocoso. Exquisitely crafted puppets, together with their human cohorts, delivered the oftentimes wacky, but ultimately morbid tale of murder, revenge, and suicide. A rich old lady, Phillipa, is confronted by her deadbeat nephew looking for another handout. The parasite loses patience, stabs his aunt, and throws her body into a well. (This is easy…

Canadian opera legend, bass Joseph Rouleau, passed away in Montréal on July 12th, 2019 at the age of 90. Born in Matane, Québec in 1929, Rouleau studied voice as a teenager before entering the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal; he went on to further vocal study in Milan in 1952. Three years later, Rouleau won a series of engagements with New Orleans Opera, and shortly thereafter, auditioned for the visiting director of Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. His first ROH season was a rich one, performing Colline in La Bohème, Sarastro in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, the Ghost of Hector in Les Troyens, Ferrando in Il trovatore, and Sparafucile in Rigoletto opposite Joan Sutherland, who became a regular collaborator. He would go on to sing 48 principal roles with…

Sarah Cambidge is having a good year. The Vancouver-born, Denver-based soprano recently made her role debut as the Foreign Princess in Rusalka with San Francisco Opera. (The production, by David McVicar, will be presented by the Canadian Opera Company this October as part of their autumn season.) Earlier in 2019, she enjoyed house and role debuts with L’Opera National de Bordeaux (Sieglinde in Die Walkure) and Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (Chrysothemis in Elektra). This coming fall, she’ll be making her Metropolitan Opera debut. Cambidge fully credits her early singing life in Canada as the base for her current success, starting with choirs (including the Vancouver Bach Choir) and voice lessons with Patricia Plumley, a longtime faculty member of the Vancouver Community College School of Music. “It was the right path for…

It was another ‘non-Ring’ year at the 2019 Bayreuth Festival. Programming centred on Richard Wagner’s ‘one-off’ operas, those early and late musical dramas informed by, and critical to the development of his ambitious four-opera Ring Cycle which will return in 2020. Just as this summer’s Festival began, a highly-anticipated announcement was made on Aug. 12th revealing that Bayreuth’s next Ring will be staged by Austrian director Valentin Schwarz along with frequent collaborator, Italian stage designer Andrea Cozzi, and German costume designer Andy Besuch. Conducting duties will go to the Finn, Pietari Inkinen. These are all relatively fresh, new names somewhat outside of the current opera firmament, and their vision will no doubt be subject to intense scrutiny come 2020. In the interim, 2019 offered the possibility to focus on ‘the rest’…

SEPTEMBER 14 OPÉRA DE MONTRÉAL. Real-life husband and wife Etienne Dupuis and Nicole Car star as the ill-fated Onegin and Tatyana in Eugene Onegin (see feature p. 24). 28 CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY, Toronto. American avant-garde director Robert Wilson’s staging of Puccini’s Turandot with American sopranos Tamara Wilson and Marjorie Owens alternating in the title role (see feature p. 8). OCTOBER 12 COC. Starry new production of Dvořák’s Rusalka with Canadian-American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role and debuting Czech tenor Pavel Černoch as the Prince in Sir David McVicar’s darkly gorgeous production. 17 VANCOUVER OPERA. Alan Gauthier’s now well-traveled ‘Josephine Baker’ production of La traviata with Canadian soprano Emily Dorn making a rare home country appearance and 2017 ‘Rubies’ honouree Yves Abel on the podium. 17 PACIFIC OPERA VICTORIA.…

CDs L’ANGE DE NISIDA DONIZETTI Opera Rara ORC58 One of the most prolific of opera composers, Gaetano Donizetti penned over 70 works in 30 years. But this one, L’Ange de Nisida, never saw the light of day in its original form. Scheduled for an 1839 Paris premiere, the presenter went bankrupt and the project was scrapped. Donizetti recycled bits and pieces of the score for La Favorite the following year. Thanks to extensive research by Italian musicologist Candida Mantica over the past ten years, the 800-page score was restored and received its much belated world premiere in Jul. 2018 at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, albeit in concert form. This Opera Rara release comes from these ROH performances under the baton of the label’s Artistic Director, Sir Mark Elder. It’s…

According to a report by the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, of 148 women and girls violently killed in Canada last year, 91% of those were killed by men. The annual numbers have stayed consistent for four decades. Every 2.5 days a woman is killed in this country, most likely by a man they know. More than half of the murdered women have been killed by their male partners and a further 13% by another male family member. (Other countries have similar tallies. N.B.— most homicide victims anywhere are men, but they are murdered in the vast majority of cases by other men, not by intimate partners or family.) With this in mind, and also considering the other types of violence that are specifically aimed at women and…