Immersive and imaginative: Manitoba Underground Opera's Tales of Hoffmann
News
Don't miss: Luminato's Bearing
News"Bearing is the first production in which I am examining what Indian Residential School means - to myself, to this company, and more importantly to this nation. This is not something that happened to a few people a long time ago; what happened then echoes and reverberates through all our lives. That's what Bearing means - how do we carry this history? How do we come to terms with it?"
Don't miss: Everybody's Got a Story
NewsKatie Edwards has conceived of this tribute to Canada's proud legacy of women singers and songwriters, and with the musical direction and arrangements by Jeannie Wyse, Everybody's Got a Story nods to greats like Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, Celine Dion, Alanis Morissette, Shania Twain, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jann Arden and Sarah McLachlan.
Don't miss: the RCM's Wide Open House
NewsWide Open House includes free concerts by RCM students and faculty, 15-minute trial lessons, instrument "petting zoos" (adorable), and music appreciation lectures. There are events geared towards kids, including Smart Start™ classes for babies and toddlers, and from 10am-2pm, the KidZone offers crafts, songs, and games for kids aged 5-10.
Ron Howard to direct new Pavarotti documentary
NewsThe documentary will include interview footage, clips of him singing, and Howard and his team will have full access to the Pavarotti family archives. "He has been vastly documented and recorded," says Howard, "enough that even though he's not with us, we’re going to be able to allow Pavarotti to tell his own story."
Opinionated opera fans: come write for us!
NewsWe're looking for opera lovers with writing chops! You'll attend shows, tell us all about them, and have your subsequent reviews published on Schmopera. Specifically (but not exclusively), we're eager to catch what's onstage in Calgary, Montréal, Vancouver, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis.
Celebrating 10 years of Opera By Request
NewsShookhoff, whose own operatic career spans four decades and includes opera companies on both sides of the Atlantic as well as university, festival, and music theatre engagements, sees OBR as a way to give back to the operatic community and to provide opportunities for emerging talent, just as established mentors (including Canadian icons Herman Geiger-Torel, Ernesto Barbini, and Mario Bernardi) provided those opportunities for artists of his generation.
Hibla Gerzmava & Danielle Akta with The Moscow Virtuosi
NewsFeaturing works by Mozart, Shostakovich, Grieg, Poulenc, Verdi and more, the Moscow Virtuosi bring its characteristic "precision and sharply defined phrases" (New York Times) to dazzle Toronto audiences. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased here. The show is June 8, 2017 at 8PM at Roy Thomson Hall. This promises to be a beauty of a concert. Get your tickets now and don't miss out.
An "imaginative multi-room transformation" with Music in the Barns
NewsThe event is created for CART/ACRT 2017 Conference Performing the Anthropocene: Setting the Stage for the End of the World, and centres on a performance of John Cage's performance piece, Lecture on the Weather (1976). The piece was commissioned by the CBC, in recognition of the American bicentennial; the text, delivered by 12 performers, features an introduction by Cage himself, expressing dismay at the actions (or inaction) of the American government.
Don't miss: live in-concert recording of Harbison's Requiem
News"This is an important work, reflective of a critical time in our history, and we are honored to be documenting it for posterity," says Tucker Biddlecombe, chorus director. "It has all the elements of the great pieces of music we all love, from Brahms-like fugues coupled with complicated and exciting harmonies, to the Dies Irae movement that hearkens to the great music of Verdi and Mozart describing the final judgement day."
Don't miss: Century Song
News"Once I became comfortable with my ability as an opera singer, once I got to the point where I felt immersed in the form, then I began to question the form itself," says Bickersteth. "I started to wonder how I, as a black person singing white European roles from another era, connect personally to this art form. It became problematic to connect with what I was trained to sing. I love the music, but I began to feel constricted in my expression of it. I began to look for other ways to fuse my training and love of classical music, with my dawning awareness of other modes of expression."