The Canadian Opera Company’s production of Otello is passionate, bleak, dramatic, and nearly everything one could want from an opera. Based on Shakespeare’s tempestuous tragedy, it is far from a comedic opera one might imagine with giggling maids, young lovers, and sets dripping with brocade and jewels. The set is modern and stark, a creative […]
Several cast members made their mainstage Canadian Opera Company…
Opera is sustainable when you can enjoy it without fully understanding it or taking it seriously. Few works rely on this more than Così fan tutte, which continues to entertain really-rather-refined audiences who would blanch at its antediluvian gender politics in a modern work. The official title translates as “all [women] do it”, and it’s […]
The Canadian Opera Company’s latest production of Elektra opened up recently to warm us right up, piercing through the snow. The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts was abuzz with folks of all ages. I wondered if this was a result of COC’s efforts to make opera exciting for younger audiences, or many of […]
A theme you will find in my reviews of Luminato shows is that I tend to feel like the festival is not really for me. I have fairly conventional theatre taste and fairly passive political beliefs (at least among the liberal consensus of my community) so Luminato’s artsy, brazen, avant-garde vibe is really just not […]
The eclectic pairing of a visually ambitious but narratively light 20th century Russian mixed bill directed with theatrical ambition and a rich Italian bel canto full-length narrative with restrained character-focused direction makes for a beautifully balanced spring season for the Canadian Opera Company, a stretch of programming that offers something for everyone no matter why […]
The Overcoat: a musical tailoring (Canadian Stage with Tapestry Opera & Vancouver Opera) This new opera is a strong achievement for Tapestry- a smallish contemporary opera company that suffers for exposure while staying admirably dedicated to their fresh-feeling operatic ideals (James Rolfe’s score is pretty and the opera is light, modern and distinct in a […]
The Canadian Opera Company’s current season is an intriguing examination of a problem from two angles. On one hand, they’re presenting their Rigoletto, last seen not-so-long-ago in 2011. It’s an aesthetically sublime, beautifully performed production of an opera with problematic subject matter. There’s also The Abduction from the Seraglio, an aesthetically dull, awkwardly performed production […]