|
C A N A D I A N O P E R A C O M P A N Y
Lucia Di Lammermoor
Opening the Canadian Opera Company's 2013 spring season is Gaetano Donizetti's bel canto masterpiece, Lucia di Lammermoor, starring American soprano Anna Christy in a production created
especially for her by director David Alden at English National Opera. The Gothic world of Lucia di Lammermoor
, conceived by Alden and his creative team, transports audiences to the ominous, brooding Scotland of Sir Walter Scott's popular novel, The Bride of Lammermoor
, on which the opera is based. An immediate success with critics and audiences at the time of its 1835 premiere in Naples, Lucia di Lammermoor
remains one of the most popular operas in the repertoire. Young Lucia, who is treated as little more than chattel within a brutal, power-driven society, is deceived by her brother, and forced to betray the man she loves and marry another. When confronted by her discarded lover, the expression of Lucia's broken heart, and now-fractured mind, results in one of the most famous and stunning mad scenes in all of opera. The quintessential
bel canto opera, Lucia di Lammermoor is a showpiece for extraordinary singing.
May 9, 12, 15, 18 & 24
Four Seasons Centre For The Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. | Tickets: $12 - $325 Phone: 416 363-8231 To order online please click here
Salome Spring season also marks the return of celebrated Canadian director Atom Egoyan with his searing, critically acclaimed COC production of Richard Strauss's Salome. At the
opera's 1905 premiere, the audience and critics were shocked by its subject matter and erotic themes; Salome's world of voyeurism and sexual abuse still elicits an equally visceral response today.
Adapted from Oscar Wilde's play, the opera recounts the ancient story of Salome, who demands the head of Jochanaan (John the Baptist) in return for performing the Dance of the Seven Veils. Salome lives in a hedonistic
royal court, with her perverse and shameless stepfather, Herod, and her imperious mother, Herodias. Salome's desire for the imprisoned Jochanaan is mirrored by a soldier's tortured infatuation for her, and Herod's own
lust for his stepdaughter. Consumed by passion, the family is inevitably torn apart by its destructive obsessions.
May 1, 4, 7, 10, 16 & 22
Four Seasons Centre For The Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. | Tickets: $12 - $325 Phone: 416 363-8231 To order online please click here
Dialogues des Carmelites Internationally renowned Canadian director Robert Carsen returns to the COC for a third
consecutive season to direct a cast of 161 performers, led by three Canadian opera stars: Isabel Bayrakdarian, Adrianne Pieczonka and Judith Forst. COC Music Director Johannes Debus makes his fourth conducting
appearance of the 12/13 season leading his first Dialogues des Carmélites. He conducts the COC Orchestra and Chorus through what is considered to be Poulenc's most haunting score and a work that contains one of
opera's most devastating and unforgettable final scenes. Dialogues des Carmélites
' music sets the tone for the story of an order of Carmelite nuns caught up in the terror of the French Revolution. Carsen's direction in Dialogues des Carmélites
focuses on the psychological states of the characters, using a minimalist approach that allows for a seamless flow from one scene to another. The mob of revolutionaries, consisting of over 100 supernumeraries, is used with simple but tremendous impact to represent the political unrest of France. The result is a work that "pierces the heart" (
Chicago Tribune) and has been described as "inventive and primally affecting . . . confirming the status of Dialogues as one of twentieth-century opera's great theatrical achievements" (Opera News).
May 8, 11, 14, 17, 19, 21, 23 & 25
Four Seasons Centre For The Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. | Tickets: $12 - $325 Phone: 416 363-8231 To order online please click here 2011 - 2012 Season Free Concert Series The insanely popular Free Concert
Series returns for it's fourth season at the 3rd floor Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, which allows for breath-taking views through floor to ceiling glass windows of University Avenue as a backdrop. Includes concerts,
performances and presentations by young artists, Canadian and international opera stars and COC staff.
This is an exciting opportunity for Torontonians to experience the artistic excellence and cultural diversity of the city in the beautiful new Four Seasons Centre For The Performing Arts.
All concerts are free to the public. "Brown bag" lunches are welcome for the noon performances.
For a complete listing of concert dates and performances at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre please click here _______________________
A G A I N S T T H E G R A I N T H E A T R E
Figaro's Wedding
This fully-staged operatic production is a brand new adaptation of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, entitled Figaro's Wedding. It will involve a
contemporary re-imagining of the setting, in English and an impressive cast. A chic, modern Toronto wedding, love, betrayal, bills and flowers. Figaro's Wedding will have it all. It is the MUST wedding of
the season.
May 29 - May 31 & June 2 The Burroughes, 6th Floor, 639 Queen Street W. | Tickets: $35 - $60 To order online, please click here ________________________________ |