Table of contents for Winter 2024 in Opera Canada

In this issue, I get to start with good news about our increasing Opera Canada family. Soprano and regular contributor Lucia Cesaroni welcomed the birth of son Cesare Antonio on Friday, September 13, 2024 (picture lower right). About the Friday the 13th birth, Lucia calls it “clearly sharing his mama’s flair for the dramatic.” She also shares that “Mama and baby are thriving and will be back with a vengeance in the next issue!” Readers will notice some features that we’re trying out in this issue. Opera Canada has recorded the history of this art form for over 60 years. As a teaser for our extensive digital archives that will launch soon, From the Archives highlights stories from the past. Here, we look at a winter 1974 article about V.…

Cast in performances across the country on its biggest stages, it’s positively absurd to think that she could have been anything else in life. “My parents wanted my siblings and me to be doctors,” she laughs, recounting a dream that she also harbored. Truth be told, Alex would probably have made a great doctor, if only for her bedside manner, which would have rivaled Patch Adams for the amount of grounded joy that she exudes in every room. She even did a year of science studies at the University of Toronto before switching into the music program. Alex herself admits that being a doctor was probably never in the cards. “We did a pig dissection in grade 12 and I almost passed out.” But an opera career was never a…

Emma Ryott is a multi-award-winning costume and scene designer from England, and she designed the scenery and costumes for Gounod’s Faust at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. Faust is a coproduction with Malmö Opera in Sweden; the arrangement also includes a production Roméo et Juliette which will also be a collaboration between the same director and designer. Some readers may remember her costume designs for The Heart of Robin Hood at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre about 10 years ago. She will return to Canada in June of 2025 to design costumes for the National Ballet’s new Anna Karenina in its North American premiere. We met in the COC’s cavernous rehearsal hall on Front Street in Toronto on her lunch break. I started with…

RIHAB CHAIEB has something to say, or rather, several things, and you don’t need to lean in to hear anything being whispered. The Tunisia-born, Canada-raised mezzo-soprano is direct and vibrant in her choices, her approach to opera, and in speaking. That vibrancy shouldn’t be surprising to those who have followed her career, which first took off during her tenures in both the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble (2010-13) and the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program (2015-18). Known for performing in a variety of classic and modern roles – as the love-torn Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther, in both Akhenaton (Nefertiti) and Satyagraha (Kasturbai) by Philip Glass, Rossini roles in both Il barbiere di Siviglia and L’italiana in Algeri, a host of Mozart roles, several world premieres and many different (and…

While a 10-year opera career is considered respectable and a 25-year one is exceptional, Finley is now in his 40th year on stage, performing at the highest level. One would never have guessed – his baritone is still sounding fresh and youthful. At an age when many fellow singers would be contemplating a farewell, Finley is still making role debuts and premiering new works, in demand at great opera houses and recital stages around the world. Just this past July at the Munich Opera Festival, I was profoundly moved by his heartfelt Amfortas in Parsifal, a role he has been singing for over a decade. After the performance, there was a ceremony on stage, where he was awarded the prestigious title of Kammersänger of the Bavarian State Opera. Finley is…

UP NEXT is a production of The Little Prince by Rachel Portman at Pacific Opera Victoria (POV) in February 2025. It’s a clever ensemble piece and I play the Lamplighter (who has a beautiful aria) and the Drunken Man (which is the second shortest role I’ve ever taken on!) as well as a Hunter and a Baobab Tree! How are you preparing? I’m getting ready for it by re-reading the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and I will watch the 1974 film again featuring Gene Wilder as the Fox, Bob Fosse as the Snake and Richard Kiley as the pilot. When Kiley sings the final “Little Prince,” it still chokes me up. Oh, and I’m also reading up on baobab trees and hoping that the company decides to go with one…

JANUARY Opéra national de Paris, France Canadian singers Matthew Cairns and Marie-Nicole Lemieux play Froh and Erda respectively in Opéra national de Paris’s production of Das Rheingold, opening January 29th and running through February 19th. operadeparis.fr Canadian Opera Company, Toronto Opéra de Montréal’s production of La Reine-garçon, by Julien Bilodeau and Michel Marc Bouchard, is being presented at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts from January 31 to February 15, 2025. coc.ca FEBRUARY Edmonton Opera, AB A contemporary production of Bluebeard’s Castle originating from London, UK, is performed by a Canadian cast (Russell Braun and Krisztina Szabó) under conductor Simon Rivard between February 1 and 7, 2025. edmontonopera.com Calgary Opera, AB Opera Canada’s own Lucia Cesaroni sings the role of Norina in Don Pasquale at Calgary Opera, also running February…

“ARTISTS AND PERFORMERS, MORE THAN anybody else, know what an ordeal it can be to visit a photographer’s studio to be photographed. One arrives at the studio, where the lights are often pre-set, sits on a straight chair or stands uncomfortably before an unfamiliar background, and is then asked to look natural. This is impossible,” says V. Tony Hauser, Toronto photographer of performers. “An artist has to be photographed in his own environment, be it stage, home or studio. “Although a picture has to be technically perfect, the most important part of it is the person being portrayed. For this reason, it is vital either to know or get to know the characteristics of the subject. When I meet a client, I observe him or her very closely for behaviour,…

It takes a village to put on an opera – from the director to the conductor, lighting designer, makeup artist, technicians, marketing, box office and of course singers, orchestra and more. The art form is as fluid as the music and the people who make it happen. Throughout their careers, singers surround themselves with a team of experts whom they trust to help them navigate the ever-changing flow. Canadian singers have likely come across Dr. Darryl Edwards, whether in a children’s choir, at university or in a masterclass. Edwards is always striving to learn new methods to better guide his students in learning about themselves and sharing their stories. “What we knew is evolving. Telling people what is good for them is over. We must take up an entirely different, cooperative,…

IN THIS ISSUE, we speak with Anne Dunning, principal associate at ARTS Action Research (AAR), an American firm that consults with performing, visual and arts service organizations. AAR’s work has been a key to building healthier arts ecosystems in communities in both the United States and Canada. OC: What are the basic principles that ground the work of AAR? AD: We work with non-profit arts and culture organizations to support them in all aspects of operating. One of the things that has been particularly important to our work is building consortiums. We think about how to create spaces where organizations come together, learn from each other, and undertake shared initiatives. AAR is also very focused on supporting arts leaders. We place arts professionals at the core of their organizations and…

If the story of Vancouver Opera (VO) were a libretto, it would begin in a town at the edge of the Pacific in the midcentury, offer plot twists including appearances by Joan Sutherland in the 1960s and 70s and experimental repertoire and technological advances in the 90s and 2000s, include a heroic battle to survive a pandemic, and highlight a 65th anniversary season beginning with Die Fledermaus. Happily, and in keeping with the frothy Fledermaus, there is no tragic ending. Surviving and thriving as a regional Canadian opera company is no mean feat, and it’s definitely time to bring out the champagne. Starring in this libretto is the ghost of Irving Guttman (photo to left), the company’s first director – known affectionately as the “father of Canadian opera.” He began with…

When was the last time you went to an opera that featured a P!nk song as an encore? My answer is that it only happened once for me: in September 2022, at the performance of The Queen in Me (TQIM) in its piano version at the Meridian Arts Centre in Toronto. An audience on their feet, cheering – an atmosphere of exuberance and joy roused by an invitation to “Raise Your Glass,” the stomping 2010 club classic that embraces those who feel “wrong in all the right ways.” Nothing could offer a better pop-culture parallel to Teiya Kasahara’s one-person show, a captivating, searing takedown of the operatic patriarchy. Almost two years later to the date, I sat down with Kasahara, a multifaceted opera artist with an established career as a…

Portia White: First You Dream CDWHITE PRODUCTIONS, PW001-2 2024 IS TURNING OUT TO BE quite a year for Portia White. Portia who, you ask? It was the common response I got from people until recently, even from Canadian opera aficionados. In the 1940s, Portia White (1911-68), a native of Truro, Nova Scotia, became the first Black Canadian classical singer to have a significant career. But for all intents and purposes, she was forgotten. If I may allow myself a small personal anecdote – in the mid 2000s, I was invited by The Canadian Encyclopedia to write a bibliographic entry on White. I really didn’t know much about her, but as a university academic and a music lover, I was eager to take on the challenge. I did the research and…