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In praise of Toronto's surprisingly rich and vital opera ecosystem

By John Terauds on March 16, 2013

Essential Opera's Il campanello artists take a bow at Heliconian Hall on March 15 (john Terauds phone photo).
Essential Opera’s Il campanello artists take a bow at Heliconian Hall on March 15 (john Terauds phone photo).

I had a chance to catch the first of two short operas presented last night at Heliconian Hall by Essential Opera. It made me think of the wealth of choices Toronto’s opera lovers have to enjoy their favourite artform.

Today and tomorrow, University of Toronto faculty of Music’s Opera Division presents Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw at the MacMillan Theatre. On Wednesday and Thursday the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School presents Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Koerner Hall.

There are so many singers learning the craft or who are recent graduates of opera programmes in Toronto that there is no shortage of willing voices for all sorts of enterprises.

The most remarkable thing about a city like Toronto is the wide range of choice between the $20 Fifth Ring ticket at the Four Seasons Centre and the $20 seat at Heliconian Hall. New, old, traditional, experimental, professional and amateur and everything in between is but a TTC ride away.

There are different ways of looking at opera once we get out of the realm of the big theatres and subscription series. The most apt it to see opera in Toronto as an ecosystem, where new and old coexist and feed off each other in all sort of creative ways.

For example, there are the people devoted to advancing the artform with new works. Tapestry, the most established new-minded company, does everything from introducing would-be opera composers and librettists to see if they can make musical theatre happen to producing fully staged performances.

In June, Tapestry presents the Toronto premiere of Shelter by Toronto composer Juliet Palmer and librettist Julie Salverson, a work co-produced with Edmonton Opera. This is an all-professional effort that will get staged at the Canadian Opera Company’s Imperial Oil Theatre (details here).

Tapestry’s closest equivalent has until this season been Queen of Puddings Music Theatre, another all-professional company devoted to developing new work. But its artistic directors are closing the doors in a few weeks, leaving the hard work of keeping an expensive and all-consuming art form vital to energetic 20- and 30-somethings.

It’s not a matter of if but when someone will come to take Queen of Puddings’ place. Perhaps it will be a collective like Toy Piano Composers, who tried their hand at new opera last season, with quite a bit of success.

I get the impression the Toy Piano Composers don’t see a deep distinction between art music and opera but a variety of different means to tell a story to an audience. That’s exactly how Queen of Puddings operated. Their next show is next Saturday at Heliconian Hall.

And we can’t overlook people who are experimenting with traditional repertoire by presenting it in novel ways.

The most remarkable of these upstarts is Against the Grain Theatre, an all-professional young company led by director Joel Ivany. Their next production, a re-imagining of The Marriage of Figaro for the corner of Queen and Bathurst Sts at the end of May, is their most ambitious yet (details here).

Add to the list Soup Can Theatre, which is mixing opera (Samuel Barber’s music school favourite, A Hand of Bridge) and theatre (Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit) at the Distillery District (at Tapestry’s studio, in fact) from March 27 to 30 (details here).

Opera 5 is another interesting group, made of recent opera grads looking to add a little twist to the experience. Last December, they presented short staged rarities at Gallery 345 that included thematically linked appetizers. As a fledgling group, they don’t have a regular schedule yet, but it’s worth keeping an eye open. Opera 5 is trying to make more shows possible with a fundraiser Sunday (Mar. 17) at the Arts and Letter Club (details here).

Which brings me back to Essential Opera, started by two young sopranos — Erin Bardua and Maureen Batt — who just want to have some fun with a combination of well-known and less-well-known repertoire presented with minimal staging and maximal fun.

Last night, the nearly full house at Heliconian Hall heard two one-act comedies: Gaetano Donizetti’s Il campanello, from 1837, and Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, from 1918.

The singers were solid for Il campanello, which is the one I heard. Baritone Fabián Arciniegas is a fantastic comedian, and Michael Rose did an excellent job at the piano.

I wouldn’t want to review this sort of intimate, fun concert experience using the same criteria as an all-professional staging. But given how much of a good time people were having during the first opera last night, I think a review is not the point. Rather, we need to acknowledge that this is a great way for the performers as well as the audience to engage in a love of an artform.

And there’s a lot more where Essential Opera comes from.

Voicebox, formerly known as Opera in Concert, is the grandparent of concert opera performance in Toronto, having been founded by pianist and coach Stuart Hamilton in 1974. Their season closer is coming up next Sunday (Mar. 24): Jules Massenet’s Thaïs.

Voicebox, run in tandem with Toronto Operetta Theatre out of its own studio at Queen St E. and Carlaw Ave. by Guillermo Silva-Marin, is as close as concert opera gets to professional quality in Toronto. It has premiered new works and has made three fine recordings of baroque opera with the Aradia Ensemble.

The Voicebox concerts, usually at the Jane Mallett Theatre, vary wildly in quality, but the key singers are always fine professionals.

Thaïs, for example, includes Laura Whalen, James Westman and Alain Coulombe (fresh from his Opéra de Montréal run in Dead Man Walking). You’ll find all the details here.

Opera by Request and its Eveready Bunny music director William Shookhoff keep up a breathless performance pace, usually at College St United Church, which is right at the corner of College and Bathurst Sts. The Request in the company’s name is not about the audience but the performers, who suggest which operas they would like to sing.

Next Saturday (Mar. 23) its Verdi’s Rigoletto. Apr. 6: Rossini’s Barber of Seville (at Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist on Chatsworth Dr in North Toronto). Apr. 19: Dvorák’s Rusalka. May 5: Janacek’s Jenufa. You can catch up on the latest Opera by Request news here.

Toronto Opera Repertoire sits comfortably in this company even though it stages its shows, because it welcomes singers of varying abilities and experience. The group usually works out of the Bickford Centre, which is a short walk from the Christie subway station.

Giuseppe Macina
Giuseppe Macina

Its magnetic core is artistic director Giuseppe Macina, who turns 75 this summer. Macina has to be one of the city’s  operatic father figures. This is his last season with the company he started in 1967 — the year he graduated from school. His last official duty is to oversee some master classes this coming week. You can find out more about the company here.

And how can we forget the youngest buds and shoots of Toronto’s opera world, the Canadian Children’s Opera Company, which does amazing work with the kids year after year after year.

This season closes with a repeat of Errol Gay’s wonderful Laura’s Cow, which they premiered last summer. The shows run May 2 to 5 at Harbourfront’s Enwave Theatre. You’ll find the details here.

Here are the young people of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company with a bit of Magic Flute a couple of seasons ago:

John Terauds

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