Opera Canadaの Vol. LXI, No. 3 の目次

Like most North Americans, I listened with some alarm, but had little notion of the dire implications this news would have. Let’s just stick to opera for now and do a little recap. In Canada, live performances still had a few months left, but by February the writing was on the wall. Here we are 10 months later and there has been little to no live opera on any Canadian stages, with some brave exceptions. We now consume almost all our opera content online—a sort of forced culmination of a digital trend in the performing arts that has been building for at least a couple decades. Yet, live opera did not disappear worldwide. With various hiccups along the way, full-scale, live productions returned in big opera centres like Vienna, Munich,…

1 Dream Role? I don’t really have one… anything Puccini or Verdi 2 Favourite opera production? COC’s Rusalka 3 Favourite opera you’ve been in? Against the Grain Theatre’s La Bohème (shout out AtG!) 4 Current favourite song? “Getaway”—Mac Ayres 5 Administrative role in opera you’d like to try? Fundraising and development 6 Advice to yourself 4 years ago? Just keep going and minding your business and you’ll be fine. 7 Performance day ritual? Drink lots of water, move my body, exercise, be chill, don’t talk too much… 8 Opera singer you most admire? Angel Joy Blue…

From my experiences working as an opera singer in Canada, the United States, and now Germany, I can attest that Canada’s classical music world is no exception to the rule of institutional racism. Much of this racism is invisible because it’s not obvious, even to ourselves sometimes. It wasn’t until recently that I started to think about what being a half-Chinese opera singer actually meant, and how I saw myself in the current opera landscape. My first voice teacher Dr. Gina Oh, a Canadian-born Korean soprano teaching in Vancouver, and I discussed our experiences as Asian-Canadians in the opera industry. We covered topics like colour-casting in roles like Turandot and Madama Butterfly, and whether or not those roles should be exclusively played by Asian performers. My own response is complicated,…

DECEMBER Faculty of Music, University of Toronto Acclaimed American mezzosoprano Denyce Graves will be giving masterclasses to some lucky UofT voice students covering art song, opera and intriguingly, crossover repertoire on Dec. 1, 2 and 4 respectively. The classes are free to watch for future viewing: youtube.com/user/UofTMusic Calgary Opera The Yuletide Sessions virtual concert was created to “celebrate the beauty and tranquility of the holiday season” with CO’s emerging artists. Listen in for seasonal tunes blended with classical masterworks to bring some untraditional tradition into your home. (On Demand) Opera McGill, Montréal On Jan. 30th and 31st Opera McGill will webcast The Turn of the Screw live from Pollack Hall. Stephen Hargreaves conducts members of the McGill Symphony Orchestra and OM head Patrick Hansen directs Britten’s 1954 opera based on…

“What would you like to start with?” …is an in-joke totemic of #singerlife. It is the first phrase uttered in auditions the world over, giving singers an opportunity to elegantly and efficiently communicate who they are as artists. So here, in the inaugural instalment of this column, I’d like to start with what it is to be a professional opera singer in 2020 both from my own vantage and from that of my friends and colleagues. As an Italian-Canadian soprano based in New York but now increasingly Europe-centric, I was trained and now sing in Canada, the U.S., Germany and Italy. I’m currently living in Berlin, using a pandemic-induced lighter schedule for three things: creating, networking and auditioning. In future columns, the opaque process of auditioning will feature prominently. But…

P. 3 photo by Chris Hutcheson P. 4: Erin Wall as Pamina in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s The Magic Flute, 2005/06, photo by Dan Rest. P5: Judith Yan photo by Edward Kowal; Alexander Neef photo by Bo Huang; La voix humaine photo courtesy of Vancouver Opera P. 6: Denyce Graves photo by Devon Cass; photo courtesy of Calgary Opera; photo courtesy of UofT Opera; illustration by Isaiah Bell courtesy of City Opera Vancouver; Suor Angelica: Disegno per copertina di libretto, Wikimedia Commons. P. 7: Turn of the Screw photo courtesy of Glyndebourne Festival; Julie Andrews as Cinderella, Wikimedia Commons; Miriam Khalil photo by Shayne Gray; Luka Kawabata photo by Mark Yammine Photography; Mansfield Park illustration courtesy of UBC Opera P. 9: Jonelle Sills photo by Khadija Mbowe P. 10/11 Wikimedia…

Though Jonelle Sills isn’t exactly new on the scene, the Toronto-based soprano has had quite the list of firsts this year. Most notably, she was named among the CBC’s top 30 Classical Musicians under 30 in August, the same month Vancouver Opera announced she’ll be one of six participants in their Young Artist Program—pandemic schmandemic. In a year that has temporarily relegated opera performances in Canada to the rearview, the privilege of an invitation to perform with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, back in October, was especially cherished by Jonelle. Reflecting on that eclectically assembled program, titled Solace—wherein Jonelle sang Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and narrated Courtney D. Ware’s text in Portrait of a Queen by Carlos Simon—she describes the experience as “Everything I’ve ever wanted. Knoxville with…

NOVEMBER 4, 1975 ——— OCTOBER 8, 2020 Sincerity. Simplicity. Authenticity. Honesty. All precious qualities to have in a performer. And when these are combined with a luminous voice, uncommon musicality, strong dramatic instinct, and a lovely stage persona, you have the makings of a treasured artist. These qualities defined soprano Erin Wall, the singer and the person. With her passing from metastatic breast cancer, we have lost one of our brightest stars in the operatic firmament. Wall left this world at the young age of 44, at the height of her artistic powers. News of her death brought forth an outpouring of grief and sadness in the music world, underscoring how beloved she was. Opera is full of tragic heroines who die young, but when it’s no longer makebelieve, the…