OPERA SPOTLIGHT COC
OPERA SPOTLIGHT COC Opera light and Dvořák rare The Mars Project comes to the Fall for Dance North festival L-R Thomas Moon, Travis Knights, Greg ‘Krypto’ Selinger. This exuberantly Canadian tale of how the population of Gander Newfoundland took in the thousands of travellers stranded when their airplanes were forced to land following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, captures the heart of almost everyone who sees the show. Music, story, performances and brilliant direction combine to create a world so positive it is hard to leave the theatre when the performance ends. The run begins on Sept 22 and is at this point open-ended. www.mirvish.com Fall for Dance North September 26 to October 6 will see the tenth anniversary return of the Fall for Dance Festival bringing individual dancers and companies from across the country and around the world to share their best works with Toronto audiences in everything from large scale presentations in big halls to smaller scale free workshops in smaller venues around the city. This festival year will also be the last programmed by founding artistic director Ilter Ibrahimof. Highlights include the return of the Edmonton Ballet Company and the premiere of The Mars Project from innovative tap dancer/ choreographer Travis Knights with Lisa LaTouche. www.ffdnorth.com Jennifer Parr is a Toronto-based director, dramaturge, fight director and acting coach, brought up from a young age on a rich mix of musicals, Shakespeare and new Canadian plays. DAVID PERLMAN Musical Flights takes the COC on the road In a canny move, the Canadian Opera Company takes their orchestra, music director Johannes Debus and four soloists on the road for five concerts previewing the COC’s upcoming fall and winter productions: Nabucco, Faust, Madama Butterfly and Eugene Onegin. Gripping stuff, but not exactly light summer fare, so the performances also include a generous sprinkling of Broadway, from shows such as Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, West Side Story and The Sound of Music. As interesting as the idea of the mini-tour, and the music that will be performed, is taking a look at the soloists who will be performing, in their own right as musicians, and because collectively they exemplify the extraordinary impact the COC Ensemble Studio has had since its founding in 1980 – not only on the lives of individual career-edge musicians, but on the COC’s own evolution as an ensemble. Midori Marsh, soprano, took first prize in the COC Ensemble Studio Competition in 2019, and has remained thoroughly engaged in the local opera and vocal scene. With the COC she has played Nella in Gianni Schicchi, Annina in La traviata, Papagena in Magic Flute, and was in the cast of Ian Cusson’s Fantasma. Beyond the COC in the wider local operatic and vocal scene, she was in the 2020 recording and the 2023 cast of Tapestry Opera’s award-winning Rocking Horse Winner, and has appeared in Soundstreams Electric Messiah, to give just two examples.She also participates actively in the musical life of orchestras and choirs, large and small across the region. One particularly memorable example comes to mind: a concert Marsh co-curated with flutist Laura Chambers, for Marsh as soloist SANKOFA:THE SOLDIER’S TALE RETOLD A uniquely Canadian reimagining of Igor Stravinsky’s iconic score – poetic, theatrical and timeless. FIVE SHOWS ONLY OCTOBER 24–27 HARBOURFRONT CENTRE THEATRE TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT artoftimeensemble.com Presented by Art of Time Ensemble in association with 22 | September 2024 thewholenote.com
Clockwise from top left: Midori Marsh, Charlotte Siegel, Korin Thomas-Smith, Matthew Cairns and the newly reconstituted London Symphonia. Titled Under The Moon repertoire included the Mad Scene in Lucia di Lammermoor and Song to the Moon from Rusalka, and a range of songs by Stephen Sondheim. So the “musical flights” required for this particular COC roadshow should come easy. Charlotte Siegel, soprano, self-describes herself on instagram as a “controlled screamer (a.k.a. opera singer)”, got her early start at Regent Park School of Music and is deeply committed to “paying things forward” musically, within the community, hand in hand with her own operatic career – something she addressed in a story in The WholeNote in February 2022. Third Ensemble Studio prize winner in 2019, she maintains strong COC ties and was a regular throughout the recently concluded 2023/24 season: Musetta in La Bohème, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Lead Hen/Innkeeper’s Wife in The Cunning Little Vixen and Handmaiden 1 in Medea. Up next: Anna in Nabucco. Tenor Matthew Cairns was the Ensemble Studio first prize winner in 2018. Last seen at the COC as Macduff in Macbeth in spring 2023, this year he hits the ground running as Ismaele in the COC’s seasonopening Nabucco, then returns as the Drum Major in Wozzeck, in what is described as “a breathtaking new production from renowned South African multidisciplinary artist William Kentridge …featuring animations and projections, painting, archival footage, film, and puppetry.” Oh and, by the way, dense and dazzling music. Baritone Korin Thomas-Smith rounds out Musical Flights’ versatile foursome of singers. Born and raised in Toronto, his resume also reflects work with other core Toronto companies such as Tapestry Opera, Citadel+Compagnie and Against the Grain Theatre. He joined the COC Ensemble Studio in 2023/24, then stayed for a second year in 2024/25. In 2023/24 he appeared memorably as Harašto (The Poacher) in The Cunning Little Vixen and Malatesta in Don Pasquale. He returns as Wagner in Faust, Second Apprentice in Wozzeck, and Captain in Eugene Onegin. So, heads up! You have five opportunities to hear a gifted musical foursome take musical flight prior to the start of the mainstage season (and do some aural homework on what the season’s mainstage shows have on offer). You also get a glimpse into the underlying philosophy behind the Ensemble Studio which since 1980 has recognized and nurtured the solo and ensemble talents of hundreds of operatic artists: Emily D’Angelo, Gordon Bintner, Ambur Braid, Isabel Bayrakdarian, John Fanning, Joseph Kaiser and Allyson McHardy, to name just a few. Drag someone along who thinks they don’t like opera. After all, even A timeless tale of a pact with the devil, Charles Gounod’s Faust offers a truly lavish spectacle in the world premiere of this brand-new Canadian Opera Company production! From October 11 to November 2, 2024, experience the finest in French grand opera at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Enjoy 20% off tickets with promo-code FOREVERYOUNG Buy online today at coc.ca/Faust Offer expires October 11, 2024. Offer excludes Opera Under 30, Grand Ring, Ring 5 Middle, and tickets, and is not applicable to previously made purchases or other mainstage operas. thewholenote.com September 2024 | 23 Date: Aug 14, 2024 Filename_ Version# COC240577_SRC_WN_Faust_FNL Client: COC Don Pasquale Creative: JF
