City Opera Logo |
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| Location | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
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| Genre(s) | Opera |
| Built | 1907 |
| Seating type | Reserved seating |
| Capacity | 650 |
| Website | cityoperavancouver.com |
City Opera of Vancouver is a professional chamber opera company founded in 2005. It was the lead company in efforts to restore Vancouver's Pantages Theatre, built by Alexander Pantages in 1907. The 650 seat building was considered to be the oldest remaining vaudeville theatre in Canada.[1] It was listed on Heritage Canada's 2009 Top Ten Most Endangered Places List[2] and the Vancouver Heritage Register[3] as a heritage building. Regardless of these efforts, and widespread community support in favour of its preservation, Vancouver City Council twice voted to refuse restoration and, beginning in 2011, the structure was demolished. City Opera Vancouver now uses other proscenium houses in Metro Vancouver.
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City Opera's repertoire base reaches from Monteverdi through to the music of our own time. On 11 March 2008, via satellite from Toronto and Vancouver, City Opera announced the commissioning of the chamber opera 'Pauline'. It will star Judith Forst in the role of Pauline Johnson, and be set at Vancouver in March 1913, the last week of Johnson's life. The libretto will be by Margaret Atwood, and the music by Christos Hatzis. It will be premiered in late 2011, and recorded by Naxos.[4]
City Opera has to date offered several lecture-demos, and recitals featuring City Opera artists, at a number of neighbourhood and service institutions. These events have been given in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 across Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, at the Carnegie Centre, at Roedde House in the west end, at Italian Day 2010 and 2011 on Commercial Drive, at the Italian Cultural Centre, at the Nikkei National Centre, the Jewish Community Centre, on Granville Island on several occasions, and in both years of the Fearless and the Homeground festivals. In November 2010 they began a new opera recital series in Richmond, B.C. They have been broadcast widely across Vancouver Shaw Cable television systems. In October 2007 City Opera produced Canada's first Sing-Along Carmina Burana, to great success. In February 2009 and 2010, City Opera participated in Vancouver's new HomeGround Festival, featuring artists from every discipline. In May 2009, City Opera produced the first in a series of New Canadian Chamber Opera workshops. This event, with twelve guest artists and recorded on DVD, workshopped the new chamber opera Sea Change, with music by Constantine Caravasillis of Toronto, and libretto by Nora Kelly.
City Opera has created a massive recording series, Canadian Classics, a survey of Canadian art music from c. 1800 to the present. It is designed in four genres: symphonic, chamber, instrumental, and vocal / choral / operatic repertoire. A National Panel of a dozen advisors has recommended worthy Canadian repertoire, and independent projects are also being considered. Naxos, the world's largest classical label, is lead partner in this long-term endeavour. Violinist Mark Fewer, pianist Rena Sharon, the Vancouver International Song Institute, clarinetist François Houle, and other distinguished artists have agreed to join the roster of Canadian Classics. Series Manager for Canadian Classics is Raymond Bisha. Canadian Classics was officially launched at the opening season gala concert of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at that city's Orpheum Theatre on 24 September 2011. The first CD released in the new series, Fugitive Colours, featured the music of Jeffrey Ryan, with the VSO led by conductor Bramwell Tovey. The series will continue with the release of 6 to 8 new CDs every year.
City Opera Vancouver is managed by an incorporated non-profit Board of Directors, headed by President Dr Nora Kelly, and in partnership with the Community Arts Council of Vancouver. Its artistic staff includes Conductor and Artistic Director Dr Charles Barber, (MA, DMA Stanford). Dr Greg Caisley (DMA, USC) serves as Staff Coach, with David Boothroyd as Staff Pianist. The company's musical advisors were the late Sir Charles Mackerras, and remain UBC Professor of Theatre Robert Eberle and Robert Baker of the Canadian Music Centre. City Opera's honorary patron is Evgeny Kissin.
On 1 February 2009, City Opera gave the British Columbia premiere of Viktor Ullmann's masterwork, 'The Emperor of Atlantis' ('Der Kaiser von Atlantis'). It was attended and addressed by the Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, the Honourable Steven Point. Subsequent remarks and analysis were provided by Dr Jaap Hamburger, a child of Auschwitz survivors. This chamber opera, professionally produced, was undertaken in partnership with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. It was written at Theresienstadt in 1944, and has been recorded by Decca. All five performances sold out.
Opening 26 May 2010, City Opera (together with co-producers UBC Drama and Film, and Blackbird Theatre) gave the Canadian event premiere of Sumidagawa together with the opera it inspired, Benjamin Britten's Curlew River. The first, drawn from the 15th C Japanese Nöh play, starred Butoh artist Denise Fujiwara as Madwoman in a choreography by Natsu Nakajima. The second starred tenor Isaiah Bell as Madwoman, together with John Minágro, Sam Marcacinni, Joel Klein, and members of the Vancouver Cantata Singers. It was directed by John Wright of Blackbird Theatre, with scenography by Robert Gardiner of UBC Theatre and Film. In the course of preparing this production, City Opera pioneered the use of Skype with its out-of-town artists.
It was widely reviewed: "almost unbearably beautiful" -- Globe and Mail; "magnificent" -- Opera Canada; "magical, very enriching, captivating, mesmerizing" -- Joy Coghill; "I almost hesitate to write for fear my words of praise will be inadequate to describe last night's production. I think I should just say it was one of the most powerful, moving experiences I have ever had in the theatre, and I so admire City Opera Vancouver for its vision and courage in staging a presentation that bridged such an enormous cultural gap so successfully." -- Rosemary Cunningham, author, 'Bravo! The History of Opera in British Columbia'; "A powerful telling of the story" -- The Georgia Straight; "What a fantastic show. A delight to see, a delight to hear." -- George Zukerman; "Tenor Isaiah Bell as the Madwoman was breathtaking. He sustained an intensity of emotion which never toppled into hysteria. His restrained gestures, like the Madwoman’s simple, haunting curlew motif in the music, slowly built suppressed tension and let Britten’s music work its magic." -- Review Vancouver
On 21 February 2011, it was announced that City Opera Vancouver was given the largest opera commission grant in Canadian history. The Annenberg Foundation of Los Angeles, in collaboration with its Explore organization, awarded City Opera $250,000 US to create a chamber opera based on an original story about the war in Iraq. That story was written by USMC Sergeant Christian Ellis. The new opera will be created over a period of two years, with its workshops held in Vancouver. The librettist is Heather Raffo, of New York City, and the composer Tobin Stokes of Vancouver.
The famed short story and film has been commissioned as an opera. On 28 April 2011, City Opera Vancouver announced that it has secured the rights to the world premiere of its chamber version. With music by Charles Wuorinen and libretto by Annie Proulx, it will be given in 2015. Its large-scale form, first commissioned by Gerard Mortier at New York City Opera, will be presented at Madrid's Teatro Real in 2014. One year later, re-scored by Wuorinen for chamber forces in the orchestra but otherwise identical to the Madrid version, it will be presented in Vancouver.
WEBSITE: www.cityoperavancouver.com
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2. Looking to the East, via Britten. David Gordon Duke, Vancouver Sun, 20 May 2010
3. Bravo! The History of Opera in British Columbia. Cunningham, Rosemary. Harbour Publishing: Vancouver, 2009
4. City Opera Vancouver Lands $250,000 Commission. David Gordon Duke, Vancouver Sun, 22 February 2011
5. City Opera Vancouver to stage chamber-opera version of Brokeback Mountain. Jessica Werb, Georgia Straight, 28 April 2011
6. War trauma in the wings at City Opera Vancouver. Marsha Lederman, The Globe and Mail, 19 November 2011