Opera Canada back issues from June 2008:
Notebook.
Jun 01, 2008; ... WE'VE RUN A NUMBER OF articles over the past several issues about the quite radical changes digital technologies are making to the availability of opera, driven to a large degree by the Metropolitan Opera through its HD movie broadcasts and its use of alternatives for radio transmission ...
Soprano Suzie LeBlanc received an honorary doctorate.(Awards and Competitions)
Jun 01, 2008 ... SOPRANO SUZIE LEBLANC RECEIVED AN HONORARY DOCTORATE from the University of King's College in Halifax May 15. The university cites her pioneering efforts to promote Acadian music through her 2004 disc, La Mer Jolie:chants d'Acadie (ATMA 22330), which celebrated the 400th anniversary of the ...
Canadians took the two top sports in the 32nd annual Lyndon Woodside Solo Competition under the aegis of the New York Oratorio Society.(Awards and Competitions)
Jun 01, 2008 ... CANADIANS TOOK THE TWO TOP SPORTS IN THE 32nd annual Lyndon Woodside Solo Competition under the aegis of the New York Oratorio Society. Baritone Tyler Duncan of Prince George, B.C., won First Prize (Ruth Lopin Nash Award, worth $7,000). while Toronto-born bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus ...
The 11th annual Alice tully Vocal Arts.(Awards and Competitions)
Jun 01, 2008 ... THE 11TH ANNUAL ALICE TULLY VOCAL ARTS Debut Recital, awarded to promote an outstanding young graduate from the Juilliard School in New York, this year went to Canadian soprano Katherine Whyte. She gave the recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill ...
At the annual Orchestre symphonique de.(Awards and Competitions)
Jun 01, 2008 ... AT THE ANNUAL ORCHESTRE SYMPHONIQUE DE Trois-Rivieres Competition in Quebec, soprano Leslie Ann Bradley won First Prize/Prix Fondation Desjardins ($2,000), Prix Marmen ($1,000) and Prix Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivieres (a concert). Second Prize was awarded to soprano Marianne ...
Soprano Hayley Crittenden, a graduating student from the Vancouver Academy of Music, is the winner of the Kay Meek Voice Scholarship.(Awards and Competitions)
Jun 01, 2008 ... SOPRANO HAYLEY CRITTENDEN, A GRADUATING student from the Vancouver Academy of Music, is the winner of the Kay Meek Voice Scholarship, the Judith Forst Scholarship for Vocal Excellence and the Vancouver Opera Guild Scholarship. As part of the Kay Meek Award, she gave a concert at the ...
The women's musical club of Winnipeg.(Awards and Competitions)
Jun 01, 2008 ... THE WOMEN'S MUSICAL CLUB OF WINNIPEG awarded First Place and $10,000 to soprano Sarah Halmarson in the Second Biennial Doris McLellan Competition for Solo Performance with the Winnipeg Symphony ...
An ailing Ben Heppner was replaced by fellow Canadian John Mac Master on the Mar. 10 opening night of the Metropolitan Opera's Tristan und Isolde, opposite soprano Deborah Voigt.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008 ... AN AILING BEN HEPPNER WAS REPLACED BY fellow Canadian John Mac Master on the Mar. 10 opening night of the Metropolitan Opera's Tristan und Isolde, opposite soprano Deborah Voigt. Heppner suffered from a serious blood borne infection that was misdiagnosed in New York, causing him to miss ...
Conductor Bernard Labadie made his debut in Barcelona.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008 ... CONDUCTOR BERNARD LABADIE MADE HIS debut in Barcelona at the Gran Teatre del Liceu last February in an all-Handel concert of arias and ...
At the end of March, malta-based Canadian conductor Eric Hull conducted Thais.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008 ... AT THE END OF MARCH, MALTA-BASED Canadian conductor Eric Hull conducted Thais in the recently renovated Teatro Perez Galdos in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. Besides ...
Mezzo Allyson McHardy, praised for he rich-toned Olga in the Canadian Opera Company's Eugene Onegin in April.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008 ... MEZZO ALLYSON MCHARDY, PRAISED FOR HER RICH-toned Olga in the Canadian Opera Company's Eugene Onegin in April, is looking forward to new assignments on both sides of the Atlantic. She sings Rosalind in Sir Richard Rodney Bennett's The Mines of Sulphur for Wexford ...
Soprano Shannon Mercer, Mezzo Jean Stilwell.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008 ... SOPRANO SHANNON MERCER, MEZZO JEAN STILWELL and baritone Theodore Baerg will be performing in Not the Messiah when Eric Idle takes his comic oratorio on the road this summer. Inspired by the film ...
Sopranos Melinda Delorme and Yannick-Muriel Noah, baritones Justin Welsh and Jon-Paul Decosse and bass-baritone Andrew Stewart completed their tenure with the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008 ... SOPRANOS MELINDA DELORME AND YANNICK Muriel Noah, baritones Justin Welsh and Jon-Paul Decosse and bass-baritone Andrew Stewart completed their tenure with the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio with a Farewell Concert to a packed audience at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre May 1 ....
After a string of competition successes, in particular her triumph at the International Hans Gabor Competition in Vienna, soprano Yannick-Muriel Noah.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008 ... AFTER A STRING OF COMPETITION SUCCESSES, IN particular her triumph at the International Hans Gabor Competition in Vienna, soprano Yannick-Muriel ...
Soprano Measha Brueggergosman.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008 ... SOPRANO MEASHA BRUEGGERGOSMAN, after taking on her first Mozart role with Elettra for Toronto's Opera Atelier in April, has signed on for more opera in the upcoming seasons--Valentine in a concert Les Huguenots for New York City Opera next season and, ...
Soprano Kathryn Domoney has established a classical-artist agency.(New Beginnings)
Jun 01, 2008 ... SOPRANO KATHRYN DOMONEY HAS ESTABLISHED A classical-artist agency, Domoney Artists Management (www.domoney-artists.com), with a roster of 11 up-and-coming singers, including soprano Virginia Hatfield, mezzo Marion Newman and baritone Giles Tomkins. Hatfield will sing Zerlina in Don ...
The Opera division of the Faculty Of Music at the University of Toronto.(New Beginnings)
Jun 01, 2008 ... THE OPERA DIVISION OF THE FACULTY OF MUSIC AT THE University of Toronto has named Sandra Horst to the position of Director of Musical Studies, starting this fall. Currently chorus director for the Canadian Opera Company, Horst will work ...
In a season of radical changes to the programming strategy.(New Beginnings)
Jun 01, 2008 ... IN A SEASON OF RADICAL CHANGES TO THE programming strategy of CBC Radio 2, executive producer Robert Cooper has decided to move on after 31 years with the corporation. At the CBC, Cooper would be best-known to readers as Executive Producer of both Saturday Afternoon at the Opera and Choral ...
More than 400 well-wishers filled the stage of the University of Toronto's MacMillan Theatre Apr. 17 to pay tribute to Stephen Ralls.(Very fond farewell.)
Jun 01, 2008 ... MORE THAN 400 WELL-WISHERS FILLED THE STAGE OF THE University of Toronto's MacMillan Theatre Apr. 17 to pay tribute to Stephen Ralls, retiring after 30 years at the Faculty of Music and 12 as director of its Opera Division. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Following a toast by ...
Margaret Atwood has written the libertto for Pauline.(New Works)
Jun 01, 2008 ... MARGARET ATWOOD HAS WRITTEN THE LIBERTTO FOR Pauline, a chamber opera about the life and last days of Pauline Johnson, the writer-performer of Mohawk and English ancestry who toured Canada, Britain and the U.S. from the late 1800s to 1909. City Opera Vancouver will ...
Emily, the way you are, a one-woman opera.(New Works)
Jun 01, 2008 ... EMILY, THE WAY YOU ARE, A ONE-WOMAN OPERA exploring the life and work of Emily Carr, received its premiere Apr. 20 at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, Ont. The performance featured mezzo Ramona Carmelly and The ...
Calgary opera will present its most recent new work.(New Works)
Jun 01, 2008 ... CALGARY OPERA WILL PRESENT ITS MOST recent new work, Hannaraptor by Allan Gilliland and Cal Brandt, at the National Performing Arts Convention in Denver in June. An opera for young audiences, it had its premiere in Airdrie Apr. 5, then toured Southern Alberta. The opera tells the story of ...
Simone Osborne.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Simone Osborne, the Vancouver-born and - trained soprano who won wide acclaim as one of the five winners of the 2008 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions last February, has a grandmother, an avid Callas fan, who can maybe claim to be the first to see it coming. Back when Osborne ...
Jeffrey Halili.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008; ... "I'm sorry you got only half my performance," Jeffrey Halili greeted me, a towel clutching his neck, at the door of his New York State Theatre dressing room. The young tenor had made his City Opera debut just four days earlier, on March 19, as the ruby-nosed scallawag Bardolfo in Verdi's ...
Julie Boulianne.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Over the last few years, an impish and talented young mezzo has been drawing a great deal of attention to herself and rave reviews for a variety of performances. A multiple prize-winner at several competitions, including the 2007 Montreal International Musical Competition, Julie Boulianne ...
Marianne Fiset.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008; ... In 2005, following a brilliant course of study at the Conservatoire de musique de Quebec with Jacqueline Martel-Cistellini, and with a Conservatory First Prize in her pocket, Marianne Fiset set off for l'Atelier lyrique de l'Opera de Montreal. She was 26. While enjoying the rewards of this ...
Kelly Robinson.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Kelly Robinson, acclaimed as a theatre and opera director and renowned as a collaborator in new works, has been appointed the Banff Centre's new Director of Theatre Arts. "It seems as though, early in my career, I began to spread some cracker crumbs in the forest and gradually ...
Letter from Seville: longtime resident Victoria Stapells Johnson reflects on a city with a particularly strong attachment to opera.(Artists on Stage)
Jun 01, 2008 ... On a balmy afternoon last February, I spent several hours with Aurelio del Pozo, the architect of the Teatro de la Maestranza. Facing the River Guadalquivir and backing onto a historic centre replete with narrow winding alleys and red geranium-filled patios, the Spanish opera house opened ...
The creation of Ines: composer James Rolfe comes face to face with what he's done.(New Productions New Roles)
Jun 01, 2008; ... May 30, 2008. In the small group milling around the main room of the Edward Jackman Centre, Toronto-based Opera in Concert's east end headquarters, it's easy to pick out composer James Rolfe. He's taller than most of the others, for one thing. and in shorts and a colorful short-sleeved ...
Musical memory; Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian finds a well of inspiration in her Armenian heritage.
Jun 01, 2008; ... In 1989, a shy Armenian girl of 15 arrived in Toronto from Lebanon--via New York and Montreal--to begin a new life with her family. Little did she know that she was embarking on a life-changing journey that would take her from the protective anonymity of youth to stardom on the stages of ...
Anniversary ambitions; Quebec City's 400th birthday bash is a perfect opportunity for I'Opera de Quebec.
Jun 01, 2008; ... Gregoire Legendre, the dynamic General and Artistic Director of I'Opera de Quebec (OdeQ), doesn't do things by half. Named Administrative Director in 1994, he became General Director two years later, and then was the natural choice to succeed Bernard Labadie when he left the company in ...
Super supernumeraries; If you love opera so much, why don't you get up on stage and perform with the professionals? The last thing you need to do is sing.
Jun 01, 2008; ... Never in a million years could I, as a pharmacist, have entertained such career changes so late in life--becoming a church cardinal and a rifle-carrying soldier in a firing squad. But such are the possibilities for a supernumerary in opera. Most of us have had a latent desire, at one time ...
Summer stock (1); A series of Chicago stagings and a mini season of French opera highlight the CBC's varied roster.(SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA)
Jun 01, 2008 ... Opera Canada's guide to the broadcasts June 7 La traviata Giuseppe Verdi In the first of three broadcasts from Lyric Opera of Chicago, soprano Renee Fleming sings the challenging role of Violetta. Fleming cites Maria Callas as a favorite ...
Calendar.(Calendar)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Listings of Canadian & International stage performances Banff Arts Festival. (403) 762-6301 or (800) 413-8368. www.banffcentre.ca. Midsummer Night's Dream (Britten)/Dido and Aeneas (Purcell). Jul 30, Aug 01, 03M. Canadian Opera Company. (416) 363-6671 ....
Edmonton Opera's.(EDMONTON.)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Edmonton Opera's February production of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore mixed Canadian singers with local actors who can all do better than hold a tune. Playwright Stewart Lemoine tweaked Gilbert's libretto with a light touch, adding lines for a few minor characters and injecting ...
Opera da Camera.(MONTREAL)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Within just five months, a group of resourceful voice students at McGill University conceived and organized their own opera company, Opera da Camera, and presented four performances of Massenet's Cendrillon, an opera not seen in a professional production in Montreal since 1912. ...
Opera de Montreal.(MONTREAL)(Opera review)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Cost-conscious Opera de Montreal has been billing revivals as "heritage" productions lately, which might sound like a euphemism for "old." But the 1976 Robert Prevost staging of II barbiere di Siviglia unveiled Feb. 2 looked remarkably fresh as updated by Guy Neveu and illuminated, ...
Canadian Opera Company.(TORONTO)
Jun 01, 2008; ... For all its moments of torture and bloodshed, Puccini's Tosca made a comparatively upbeat Canadian Opera Company winter season companion to From the House of the Dead. In a new, unimaginatively directed (by Paul Curran) and designed (by Kevin Knight), traditional-style production, the real ...
Soundstreams Canada.(TORONTO)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Soundstreams Canada, oboist Lawrence Cherney's Toronto-based presenter of new music, celebrated its 25th anniversary in February with the first-ever Cree opera. The Journey--pimooteewin in the Cree language--boasts a text by Tomson Highway, perhaps the most revered Aboriginal playwright ...
Toronto Operetta Theatre.(TORONTO)
Jun 01, 2008; ... This has been quite a season for composer Victor Davies, with two world premieres for the lyric stage. Following Manitoba Operas staging of his Transit of Venus last November, Toronto Operetta Theatre opened Earnest, The Importance of Being Feb. 22. This is a witty, sometimes hilarious, ...
It is easy to miss the forest for the trees in Tapestry's annual Opera to Go.(TORONTO)(Opera review)
Jun 01, 2008; ... It is easy to miss the forest for the trees in Tapestry's annual Opera to Go. The point of the production is new-opera creation. Librettists and composers are thrown together under hothouse conditions, the most successful collaborations making it to the stage. How well they turn out ...
Opera in concert.(TORONTO)
Jun 01, 2008; ... You don't expect daunting vocal acrobatics, too many lyrical passages or European-style arias in Russian opera--yet with skilful singers and firm musical direction the emotional effects can be stunning. Such was the case when Opera In Concert, always noted for its adventurous ...
Opera York's.(TORONTO)
Jun 01, 2008; ... The Feb. 29 performance of Opera York's Don Giovanni coincided with a huge snowstorm. Even though the curtain was held for 20 minutes, many latecomers were being led to their seats for most of the first hour--annoying but forgivable under the circumstances. Those who braved the elements ...
From the House of the Dead.(Canadian Opera Company)
Jun 01, 2008; ... A bird of prey projected onto a giant screen greeted audiences for the Canadian Opera Company's February production of Janacek's From the House of the Dead. As the orchestra proceeded through the score's opening measures, the bird's eye began to enlarge, revealing within it a man's ...
Stitch.(Urbanvessel)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Toronto's biennial Free Fall Festival is a forum for the avant-garde produced by the Theatre Centre, the city's most experimental theatre presenter. Urbanvessel is an interdisciplinary collective that creates site-specific work anchored in a big-city sensibility. It's more than likely, ...
The Dream Healer.
Jun 01, 2008; ... The University of British Columbia Opera Ensemble celebrated the university's 100th birthday with the world premiere of The Dream Healer by Vancouver composer Lloyd Burritt to a libretto, based on Timothy Findlay's novel Pilgrim, by Christopher Allan and Don Mowatt. It was presented in ...
Madama Butterfly.
Jun 01, 2008; ... Elli Bunton described her set and costume designs for Pacific Opera Victoria's Madama Butterfly as "impressionistic," but it was more than that: impressionism became the overarching concept for the entire production, visually and musically. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
Vancouver Opera's.(VANCOUVER)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Just because a production scores a success in one location doesn't necessarily mean it will succeed in another. This was the case with Vancouver Opera's presentation of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algieri. This same show, with sets and costumes from Santa Fe opera, was recently seen in Seattle ...
Burnaby Lyric Opera.(VANCOUVER)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Burnaby Lyric Opera staged an effervescent production in February of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. Stage direction, set design and the timely English dialogue adaptation were all by Matthew Bissett. The stage was set with an effective backdrop of a ...
Lyric Opera of Chicago's.(CHICAGO)
Jun 01, 2008; ... A remarkable aspect of Lyric Opera of Chicago's 2007/08 season was that several productions had major star defections (including La boheme, Falstaff and II barbiere di Siviglia), but none of the performances suffered with the replacements the company came up with. Concluding the season was ...
Florida Grand Opera's.(MIAMI)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Tosca's perennial appearance on lists of the most performed operas was confirmed by finding Florida Grand Opera's February production of Puccini's "shabby little shocker" (to quote musicologist Joseph Kerman's ungenerous characterization) staged in Miami almost simultaneously with the ...
New York City Opera's.(NEW YORK)(Opera review)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Verdi's Falstaff exists in time in two forms: one passes in the all-too-fleeting blink of an enchanted eye; the other unfolds over a three-hour span with two intermissions. The last two revivals of the Met's once-magical, 43-year-old Zeffirelli production lumbered along prosaically despite ...
New York City Opera's.(NEW YORK)
Jun 01, 2008; ... New York City Opera's spring-season Tosca made for a pleasant enough evening Mar. 28-but is pleasant enough good enough for Tosca? The "shabby little shocker" that so famously exercised Joseph Kerman was little in evidence in this revival of Mark Lamos's 1998 production, which bumps the ...
The Met season's seemingly inexhaustible parade of ailing tenors, which reached a memorable peak in its revival of Tristan und Isolde, marched firmly into April with its Ernani.(NEW YORK)
Jun 01, 2008; ... The Met season's seemingly inexhaustible parade of ailing tenors, which reached a memorable peak in its revival of Tristan und Isolde, marched firmly into April with its Ernani. Marcello Giordani, whom Peter Gelb twice enlisted last fall to add star power to 11th-hour cast changes, may ...
Salome.(Dallas Opera)
Jun 01, 2008; ... This was an intriguing Salome, with an excellent singing cast, a colorful theatrical presentation and a conductor with the assurance and mastery to conduct the score the way Strauss said he wanted it conducted--as if Mendelssohn had written it! This is no easy feat, for the score's radiant ...
St. Paul.
Jun 01, 2008; ... Toronto-based director Tim Albery convinced Opera North and Minnesota Opera to collaborate on The Fortunes of King Croesus, a barely known, 297-year-old opera by Reinhard Keiser, himself hardly remembered even though he was once called "the greatest opera composer in the world." With the ...
Tannhauser.(San Diego Opera)(Opera review)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Seen Jan. 26 and Feb. 1, San Diego Opera's Tannhauser--its first since 1969-featured baritone Russell Braun's debut as Wolfram von Eschenbach, a role for which his father Victor was also noted. Gunther Schneider-Siemssen's Metropolitan Opera designs, originally created for Vienna, were ...
Cyrano de Bergerac.
Jun 01, 2008; ... Premiered at Rome in January 1936 and dedicated to Benito Mussolini, Franco Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac was poised to inaugurate the repertoire of "a new model Italian opera," superseding verismo and even Puccini, whose incomplete swan song, Turandot, Alfano had half-heartedly completed a ...
Seattle Opera's.(SEATTLE)(Opera review)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Three important singers determine the success or failure Tosca, all requiring what the Italians call spinto voices. A light, lyric soprano can sing all the notes, and can, perhaps, like Canadian Michele Capalbo, in the second cast of Seattle Opera's Jan.-Feb. production, project big top ...
Opera de Marseilles.(MARSEILLES.)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Originally staged in London in February 1724, Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto finally had its Opera de Marseilles premiere in Feb. 2008 in a masterful new production directed and designed by Yannis Kokkos. He placed the action in a 1930s Art Deco setting that recreated the lobby of a ...
London.(UNITED KINGDOM)
Jun 01, 2008; ... The first few bars of Vivaldi's Tito Manlio, performed in concert in Barbican Hall Feb. 19, provoked an odd reaction: I had a strong urge to reach for the remote to hike the volume. I'd listened to a bit that afternoon, with the same orchestra and conductor--the Accademia Bizantina under ...
London.(UNITED KINGDOM)
Jun 01, 2008; ... However good they are, stupendous singing and playing cannot rescue laughable sets and cack-handed directorial ideas. But they can generate an operatic blaze so intense that it almost burns up the memory of them. That was the case with Covent Garden's wonky 2006 production of ...
Salome.(Royal Opera, Covent Garden)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Salome as hypnotic dance of death, Salome as discomfiting domestic drama: both aspects of Strauss's multifaceted master-work were served up by David McVicar's new production at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Feb. 21, With the action moved ahead to the 1930s, give or take a decade ...
Griselda.(CDs)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Antonio Vivaldi Naxos: 8.660211-13 Irish-born Canadian Kevin Mallon and his Aradia Ensemble have made more than 20 recordings now for Naxos, and this taut new performance of one of Vivaldi's little-known. late-period operas will do much to spread the good word about ...
La Sonnambula.(CDs)
Jun 01, 2008; ... Vinceno Bellini Virgin Classics: 00946 395138 26 Although this release is based on live performances recorded in November 2006 at the Opera National de Lyon, the adrenalin rush associated with public performance is missing. The major cause is the conducting of former ...