Opera Canada back issues from June 2005:
Notebook.
Jun 22, 2005; ... With the 2004-05 season now at an end, opera enthusiasts can take a little break--although, of course, there's still a great deal on offer at the many summer festivals around North America and further afield. It's not a very long break, to be sure, since most of the companies have already ...
Tenor Joseph Kaiser and mezzo-soprano Michele Losier were finalists at the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in March.(COMPETITIONS AND AWARDS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Tenor Joseph Kaiser and mezzo-soprano Michele Losier were finalists at the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in March. In 2002, Kaiser won third prize as a baritone at the Jeunesses Musicales International Vocal Competition in Montreal. A former member of the COC Ensemble Studio, he is ...
Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso, received the award for Best Classical Recording of the Year.(COMPETITIONS AND AWARDS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... The Naive recording of Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso, in which Marie-Nicole Lemieux sings the title role, received the award for Best Classical Recording of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique ...
Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian's CBC recording, Cleopatra, won Best Classical Album of the Year.(COMPETITIONS AND AWARDS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian's CBC recording, Cleopatra, won Best Classical Album of the Year--Vocal ...
Baritone Luc Lalonde, is the recipient of the fifth annual Vivian Asfar Memorial Award for Vocal Excellence.(COMPETITIONS AND AWARDS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Baritone Luc Lalonde, a member of Opera Lyra Ottawa's Young Artists Training Program, is the recipient of the fifth annual Vivian Asfar Memorial Award for Vocal Excellence. A graduate of McGill University, Lalonde continues to study with the coaching-teaching team of Dixie Ross and William ...
The fourth Montreal International Musical Competition recently announced its winners.(COMPETITIONS AND AWARDS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... The fourth Montreal International Musical Competition recently announced its winners. The $25,000 first prize went to soprano Sin Nyung Hwang from South Korea. Canadian baritone Peter McGillivray won second prize; Australian soprano Elena Xanthoudakis won third prize, as well as the award ...
Scotiabank was named Canadian Business of the Year in the Bravo!(COMPETITIONS AND AWARDS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Scotiabank was named Canadian Business of the Year in the Bravo! Awards announced at the Opera America annual conference in Detroit in May ....
Canadians are well represented in the 2005-6 season of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden.(ARTISTS ON STAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Canadians are well represented in the 2005-6 season of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian will sing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro opposite the Count of baritone Gerald Finley (Jan.-Feb. and June-July 06), and soprano Gillian Keith will appear as Titania in a new ...
Tenor John Mac Master made his Metropolitan Opera debut on March 22 as Canio in I Pagliacci.(ARTISTS ON STAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Tenor John Mac Master made his Metropolitan Opera debut on March 22 as Canio in I Pagliacci, followed by a broad-cast performance of the same opera four days later. In May, he played the overseer Casey in the world premiere performances of Margaret Garner by composer Richard Danielpour and ...
Mezzo-soprano Norine Burgess sang Mary Lloyd.(ARTISTS ON STAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Mezzo-soprano Norine Burgess sang Mary Lloyd, the title role of the new Vienna Volksoper production of Emmerich Kalman's Die Herzogin von Chicago. She will return next season to ...
Tenor Michael Schade will sing in the 50th anniversary gala concert of the Vienna State Opera on November 5.(ARTISTS ON STAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Tenor Michael Schade will sing in the 50th anniversary gala concert of the Vienna State Opera on November 5, celebrating the reopening of the theatre following World War II. On the program will be excerpts from Fidelio, Don Giovanni, Der Rosenkavalier, Aida, ...
Mezzo-soprano-turned-soprano Michele Bogdanowicz will sing Susanna.(ARTISTS ON STAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Mezzo-soprano-turned-soprano Michele Bogdanowicz will sing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro this summer for San Francisco Opera's Merola Program. In the fall, she returns to the COC Ensemble Studio for a second season, singing Mercedes in Carmen on the ...
Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka will make Toronto her home this summer.(ARTISTS ON STAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... After many years of living in London, England, soprano Adrianne Pieczonka will make Toronto her home this summer. In August, the Burlington, Ont. native will have preliminary rehearsals in preparation for her Bayreuth debut as Sieglinde in the summer of 2006. Then she is off to Tokyo on ...
Baritone Russell Braun spends the summer at the Salzburg Festival.(ARTISTS ON STAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Baritone Russell Braun spends the summer at the Salzburg Festival as Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte. In October, he makes his La Scala debut in one of his signature roles, Pelleas in ...
Mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy will make her New York City Opera debut.(ARTISTS ON STAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy will make her New York City Opera debut as Marquise Melibea in Rossini's Il viaggio a Rheims (Sept.-Oct.) ....
Two Canadian companies will be part of the Three Rings Arts Festival in Prague July 7-9.(COMPANY NEWS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Two Canadian companies will be part of the Three Rings Arts Festival in Prague July 7-9. TrypTych will be taking its production of Grigori Frid's The Diary of Anne Frank, which premiered in Canada in March 2004. And Judy Kopelow ...
Opera York.(COMPANY NEWS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Opera York received $360,000 from the Ministry of Canadian Heritage. The company will purchase equipment for the St. Elizabeth School forthe Arts Theatre being ...
The Canadian Opera Company.(COMPANY NEWS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... The Canadian Opera Company recently announced the commission of a new opera written for young people. Entitled Isis and the Seven Scorpions, it will be performed in elementary schools across Ontario. Dean Burry, who has done considerable work for young performers and audiences, will write ...
IT seems the only thing predictable about opera is its unpredictability.(COMPANY NEWS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... IT seems the only thing predictable about opera is its unpredictability. The Canadian Opera Company thought it had faced its biggest challenge this season with its new production of Siegfried, but then came the prospect of mounting Rossini's Tancredi on an empty stage, after the set and ...
Claire Hopkinson.(COMPANY NEWS)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Claire Hopkinson recently resigned as producer and general manager ...
Tenor Michael Schade has been busy in the recording studios.(AUDIO/VIDEO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Tenor Michael Schade has been busy in the recording studios. His Die schone Mullerin with pianist Malcolm Martineau on CBC Records has just been released (see review in Opera at Home). Then, in September, a recording of Richard Strauss's ...
A new Die Winterreise with baritone Russell Braun and pianist Carolyn Maule on the CBC Records label will be released in September.(AUDIO/VIDEO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... A new Die Winterreise with baritone Russell Braun and pianist Carolyn Maule on the CBC Records label will be released in ...
The Robert Carsen production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, seen in Barcelona this spring, will soon be released on DVD.(AUDIO/VIDEO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... The Robert Carsen production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, seen in Barcelona this spring, will ...
Adrianne Pieczonka has recorded her first solo CD.(AUDIO/VIDEO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Adrianne Pieczonka has recorded her first solo CD, a collection of Wagner and Strauss arias, accompanied by the ...
New productions/new roles: in Filumena, composer John Estacio and librettist John Murrell told a regional story that's now winning a national audience.
Jun 22, 2005; ... ON a February night in 2003 at Calgary's Jubilee Auditorium, the first performance of a new opera was reaching its finale. Soprano Laura Whalen sang her last, ecstatic notes, and her character--a heart-broken Italian immigrant in 1920s Alberta--said her good-byes to life. The lights ...
Gordon Gietz.(ONSTAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Enter tenor Gordon Gietz's website and click on "Bio." Up flashes the prompt "Warning: Software has detected gross exaggeration and inflated operatic ego. Realty filters will now be engaged." The page abruptly vanishes, but there's just enough time to read the first sentence: "Gordon Gietz ...
Valerie Kuinka.(ONSTAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Changing professions at 48 is a frightening prospect, but that is exactly what Valerie Kuinka is in the process of doing. She is an orchestral violist who is now building up a resume as an opera director. Instrumental music may have been her first love, but theatre was never far behind ....
Michele Capalbo.(ONSTAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... "I think I have Verdi DNA," says Michele Capalbo with a laugh. Those who have heard her sing might well agree, since the New York-based Canadian is making a splash as that rarest of birds, a Verdi soprano. Few singers would dare to make a professional debut in the exacting role of Helene, ...
David Agler.(ONSTAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... "I made my first visit to Wexford in 1996, as a conductor, and had a most happy and productive time. I remember thinking, 'What a fortunate man [then director] Luigi Ferrari is!' Well, I'm that fortunate man now, and after only six months in the post, I feel more enthusiastic than ever." ...
Megan Latham.(ONSTAGE)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Megan Latham is a full, lyric mezzosoprano with a voice that is rich, fruity, bold and ravishing in lustre. No wonder powerful forces have taken an interest in her--Marilyn Horne, for one. The Canadian Opera Company for another. At 33, Latham is starting her career relatively ...
About the house: the COC's Richard Bradshaw often jokes that the battle to build an opera house has been like a 30 Years War. Can it be that final victory is just one year away?
Jun 22, 2005; ... First it was happening, then it wasn't. Then, for a while, it was hard to tell whether it was happening or not. But now, it is definitely happening: the Canadian Opera Company's new home--named the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts--is rising as a cast-in-concrete reality at the ...
Covering the part: if you're making your career as an opera singer, there's a time when a company might pay you even when it hopes you won't sing.
Jun 22, 2005; ... OPERA HISTORY IS REPLETE WITH ACCOUNTS OF EVERY CONCEIVable variation on this archetypal opera theme: unannounced and perhaps hitherto undiscovered singer triumphantly fills in for ailing opera star--preferably at the last minute on an important opening night--and a major career is ...
Hair-raising tales: getting to the roots of the wig-maker's art.
Jun 22, 2005; ... Imagine taking two or three 12-inch human hairs and knotting them through a hole in a piece of netting that looks like crinoline but feels much softer. Now imagine, with a tool much like a rug hook in hand, doing this repeatedly--knotting the hair in different directions and occasionally ...
Calendar.(Calendar)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Listings of Canadian & international stage performances CANADA The Aldeburgh Connection. (416) 444-3976. www.aldeburghconnection.org. Die schone Postmeisterin. Oct 30M. Young Artists Recital. Nov 22. A Christmas Party. Dec 04M. Mozart among friends. Jan 15M. Young ...
Burnaby Lyric Opera.(BURNABY, B.C.)
Jun 22, 2005; ... The word "joy" sums up the recent production of Le nozze di Figaro created by Burnaby Lyric Opera. The set by stage director Matthew Bissett was simple but effective: two frames, a large one behind the proscenium arch and a smaller one just in front of the cyclorama. With the lighting (by ...
Calgary Opera.(CALGARY)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Berlin cabaret is etched forever in the modern mind as the soul of Weimar Republic Germany, with its unique culture of biting satire and tired, world-weary ennui. Calgary Opera lovingly recreated this environment in its final event in a season without a venue. Entitled A Kurt Weill ...
Opera Ontario.(HAMILTON)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Opera Ontario's premiere of Mozart's first big hit, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, seemed to be getting into trouble before it began, when two Konstanzas dropped out before soprano Cheryl Evans was found, a mere five days before the first performance. And she had never sung the role ...
L'Opera de Montreal.(MONTREAL)
Jun 22, 2005; ... In April, L'Opera de Montreal's Atelier Lyrique apprentice program presented more early music in the form of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, mounted in the exquisite and intimate Monument National. This was an imaginative production that placed the action in a universal Neverland while ...
Opera Lyra Ottawa.(OTTAWA)
Jun 22, 2005; ... A superfluous spoken pre-prologue began Opera Lyra Ottawa's April production of Les contes d'Hoffmann, upsetting the emotional trajectory of the story and leaving little sense of mystery afterward. But there were other things to delight the ear and eye. The three objects of Hoffmann's ...
Canadian Opera Company.(TORONTO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... The Canadian Opera Company spent April, the last month of its 2004-05 Hummingbird Centre season, on the battlefields of Spain and Sicily, courtesy of Verdi's Il trovatore and Rossini's Tancredi, the latter receiving its Canadian premiere production. What threatened to be an artistic turned ...
Opera Atelier.(TORONTO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... To bring its 19th season to a close, Opera Atelier revisited two of its signature works from seasons past, Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Acteon, one of its first ventures into the French Baroque, and Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, the calling card for its first European tour. Presented as a ...
Opera in Concert.(TORONTO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Opera in Concert offered a production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda that was a good college try at bel canto style. Music-director-cum-pianist Raisa Nakhmanovich emphasized the musical drama while correctly keeping the cabalettas slow, the cavatinas dreamy and the recitatives intense ....
Royal Conservatory of Music.(TORONTO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... With its headquarters under renovation, the Royal Conservatory of Music has relocated to a former west-end Toronto high school and a temporary auditorium recital hall. While the acoustics were less than stellar, there was still a lot to recommend in RCM's double bill of Vaughan Williams' ...
Toronto Consort.(TORONTO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Toronto Consort's concert production of Luigi Rossi's 1647 rarity Orfeo was given its Canadian premiere by a mostly stalwart group of singers and musicians. Rossi's gorgeous music is filled with a melodic cascade of arias, ensembles, choruses and charming instrumental interludes, which ...
Toronto Operetta Theatre.(TORONTO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Toronto Operetta Theatre broke new ground with its first staged Spanish zarzuela. Francisco Barbieri's El barberillo de Lavapies debuted in 1874, and contains all the sparkling music of the genre, along with the complicated plot and subplots about a roguish barber (Lamparilla), who helps a ...
University of Toronto's Opera Division.(TORONTO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... In an inspired move, the University of Toronto's Opera Division engaged director Tom Diamond and designer Julia Tribe to stage a production of Handel's Semele, and it was a droll and clever vision that could grace any opera house. In Handel's 1744 English opera, the Theban ...
Vancouver Opera.(VANCOUVER)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Mozart's Cosi fan tutte returned to Vancouver Opera after a 15-year hiatus, presented in a simple yet tasteful production that didn't vie for attention with the singers. Director Allison Grant kept the action firmly in the 18th century, and added some nice individual touches to remind the ...
University of British Columbia School of Music/Opera Division.(VANCOUVER)
Jun 22, 2005; ... In March, the University of British Columbia School of Music/Opera Division brought Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin to vibrant life. Under the direction of Opera School director Nancy Hermiston, the story, sung in Russian, became immediate, and its complexities universal. The open stage of ...
North Shore Light Opera.(VANCOUVER)
Jun 22, 2005; ... In Presentation House's tiny theatre in North Vancouver, scarcely the size of a squash court, the brilliance of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus, presented by the North Shore Light Opera in March, enraptured its audience. Director Peter Jorgensen set the opera in a 1920s North America that ...
Pacific Opera Victoria.(VICTORIA)
Jun 22, 2005; ... For its final production of the season, Pacific Opera Victoria came up with a Tosca that audiences won't forget in a hurry. When Tosca (Christine Riel) bumped off Scarpia (John Avey) with startling verisimilitude in Act II, for instance, I'm surprised no one dialed 911. Tosca is replete ...
Wilfrid Laurier University's Opera Program.(WATERLOO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... For this year's production, Wilfrid Laurier University's Opera Program chose Robert Ward's The Crucible. Based on Arthur Miller's play about the Salem Witch Trials, the story is an allegory of the anti-Communist hysteria during the McCarthy era in the U.S. that led to the suppression of ...
Atlanta Opera.(ATLANTA)
Jun 22, 2005; ... The impact of Atlanta Opera's new production of Beethoven's Fidelio, a timeless story of political imprisonment, was heightened by being produced in a country that currently has both Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisoners on its conscience. Using the simplest of means, director Lorna ...
Chicago Opera Theater.(CHICAGO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... At last, Chicago Opera Theater staged an antique work in which the updating was not overstated or forced or over-obvious. Many opera companies, including COT, have embraced the Handel revival, but this company's choice of La Resurrezione was especially unusual. That it is an oratorio ...
Houston Grand Opera.(HOUSTON)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Even though Mozart's Idomeneo had never been seen here until Houston Grand Opera's current, golden-jubilee season, the spare, but stylish, production by designer Carl Friedrich Oberle and director Moffatt Oxenbould had a feeling of cozy familiarity. Evocative of Sweden's Drottningholm ...
Metropolitan Opera.(NEW YORK)
Jun 22, 2005; ... The Metropolitan Opera's year-old Don Giovanni, so listless at its premiere, proved a much better show in revival during its third run this past April. Marthe Keller's production (with stage direction now credited to Gina Lapinski), in Michael Yeargan's simple and somewhat austere ...
San Diego Opera.(SAN DIEGO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... A second experience of San Diego Opera's production of Cost fan tutte brings deeper appreciation of Allen Moyer's scenic design, David O. Roberts' costumes and Leon Major's meticulous staging, which employs principal singers and supernumeraries in numerous, delicious ways. This production ...
Sarasota Opera.(SARASOTA)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Sarasota Opera's new production of Cavalleria rusticana and I Pagliacci featured the impressive set designs of David Gordon. Both were traditional, yet utterly different: Cav showed a charming, sun-baked village plaza, although, given the size of the Sarasota stage, it was quite cramped ...
Washington National Opera.(WASHINGTON)
Jun 22, 2005; ... With Michael Schade's Tamino, Russell Braun's Papageno and the petite Hungarian lyric-coloratura, Andrea Rost, as Pamina, how could the Washington National Opera not come up a big winner with its Spring mounting of Die Zauberflote? Both vocally and histrionically it was splendid, with one ...
Opera Australia.(SYDNEY)
Jun 22, 2005; ... John Mac Master slotted seamlessly into Opera Australia's well-worn, but still splendid, Tosca at the Sydney Opera House in mid-February. Mac Master was one of three Cavaradossis in this revival, but had half the performances. But there was only one Tosca, and a splendid, homegrown one at ...
Teatro Campoamor.(OVIEDO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... There was a bravo from the audience at the Teatro Campoamor for Richard Margison in the role of Radames when he finished that most treacherous "Celeste Aida, forma divina." In fact, though, it was in the third act, in his duo with Aida, where the tenor was truly musical and conveyed his ...
Royal Opera, Covent Garden.(LONDON)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Baritone Gerald Finley has just acquired a fine new role at Royal Opera, Covent Garden: Giorgio Germont in La traviata. Despite a dusting of grey on his hair, he still looked rather young for the part, but vocally and dramatically, it suited him perfectly. Although the only other Verdi he ...
Weill in Weimar, 1929; Left to right: Michelle Milenkovic, Marc Embree, Christopher Ryan and Sheri Somerville in the Edmonton Opera production.(EDMONTON)
Jun 22, 2005; ... With Northern Jubilee Auditorium closed for restoration, Edmonton Opera continued its tour of unexpected venues with Weill in Weimar, 1929: A Weimar Cabaret, featuring excerpts from The Mahagonny Spingspiel, The Happy End Singspiel and The Threepenny Opera. It was a razzle-dazzle and ...
Agrippina: Lyne Fortin in the title role of the Opera de Montreal production.(MONTREAL)
Jun 22, 2005; ... BY engaging Bernard Labadie as artistic director, L'Opera de Montreal automatically signed up for an experiment in Baroque repertoire--this season, Handel's Agrippina, in a production on loan from Glimmerglass. Its March run proved a surprise success, easy to follow and to enjoy even in ...
La boheme: Andrew Tees (Marcello) in the Opera York production.(TORONTO)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Fresh from its successful concert performance of Carmen last November and the infusion of $360,000 in capital funding from Heritage Canada towards a future new theatre, the fledgling Opera York embarked on its most ambitious project yet, with two fully staged performances of La boheme in ...
The Cunning Little Vixen: the Pacific Opera Victoria production.(VICTORIA)
Jun 22, 2005; ... Pacific Opera Victoria's first-ever staging of The Cunning Little Vixen paid due obeisance to the spirit of Janacek's 1924 opera, and, judging from snippets of conversation overheard at intermission, opened a lot of Victoria eyes and ears to the composer's spiky individuality. ...