PROGRAM WINTER 2016 SIEGFRIED THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO CONTENTS A MESSAGE FROM GENERAL DIRECTOR 4 HIS LIFE, HIS WORK, ALEXANDER NEEF HIS CRAZY SCHEDULE Johannes Debus, COC Music Director “This is our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, 6 NEWS FROM THE COC’S more beautifully, more devotedly ANNUAL GENERAL than ever before.” MEETING Making Leonard Bernstein 7 BIOGRAPHIES Who’s Who at the COC this Winter First of all, it gives me great pleasure to announce that our exceptional 16 WHAT’S PLAYING: music director Johannes Debus has the arts SIEGFRIED extended his contract with the COC to the end of the 2020/2021 season. 22 SIEGFRIED, MEMORY Orchestra of the National Anthem at AND IDENTITY In January and February, two the top of the performance, and a few 24 GET TO KNOW... extraordinary COC productions grace brief remarks from me to dedicate the STEFAN VINKE the mainstage, both conducted by production of The Marriage of Figaro accessible. Johannes, who will be making his to the Canadian values we hold so 25 UP IN THE AIR Siegfried debut. dear. WITH THE COC! This production also stars the Every new calendar year at the COC 28 BACKSTAGE AND world’s most renowned Siegfried, begins with a season announcement. BEYOND Stefan Vinke in his first Canadian For the third year in a row, our 30 WHAT’S PLAYING: performances, and the incomparable subscribers were part of the THE MARRIAGE Christine Goerke, making her role excitement at the 2016/2017 Season OF FIGARO debut. Launch Celebration last week, becoming the first to hear about our 36 HOLDING A MIRROR UP Our new Marriage of Figaro is a upcoming line-up of productions. In TO NATURE production originally created by the addition to our beloved classics, Tosca Jane Archibald and Erin Wall Salzburg Festival. Directed by the on The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, the majesty of renowned Claus Guth and starring Götterdämmerung, and superb new 38 DARKNESS AND JOY our own wonderful Jane Archibald, productions of Norma and Ariodante, Exploring the humanity of Russell Braun and Erin Wall, we are we are presenting, in collaboration Claus Guth’s Figaro very pleased that this acclaimed with Canada’s National Arts Centre, a production now belongs to us. new production of Louis Riel to help 41 OPERA’S NEXT mark the country’s 150th birthday. I’m GENERATION The Marriage of Figaro is a sure you agree that 16/17 is a season 44 OPERA: FACES AND particularly poignant opera that truly worth celebrating! (Please refer to the WORDS exemplifies the values of freedom of insert within this program for more speech and expression. Mozart’s opera information). 46 MANY THANKS (and the comedy by Beaumarchais Acknowledging our it is based on) is among the earliest Finally, over the past year, COC staff many supporters pieces in the operatic canon to and volunteers have been looking deal with the ideas and values that further ahead into the future and 54 PATRON INFORMATION AND POLICIES have recently come under attack in embarked on an extensive strategic Paris, Beirut, San Bernardino and planning process called COC365. other places around the world. At At the heart of the new mission the COC, we feel it is important to and vision for the company is not only reflect on the impact of our unequivocal belief in artistic these attacks, but also to honour excellence, and, in the next five COC Program is published three times a our Canadian values of freedom, years, we will turn our dreams and year by the Canadian Opera Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole respect for cultural differences, and a ideas into concrete plans to help or in part without written consent is commitment to social justice. We are our large, multi-faceted, and ever- prohibited. Contents copyright Canadian proud of providing a cultural space evolving company grow even better Opera Company. Direct all advertising in this country where people are BMO Financial Group is proud to sponsor the Canadian inquiries to [email protected]. and stronger. With COC365, we will free to gather, create art and express bring the transformative experience of Program edited by Claudine Domingue, opinions—freedoms not granted in opera to our local, national, and global Opera Company’s Student Dress Rehearsals and Director of Public Relations; Kristin McKinnon, Assistant Publicist; and, Gianna many places around the world. audience every day of the year. You Pre-Performance Opera Chats. Wichelow, Senior Manager, Creative and won’t want to miss a moment of it! Publications. Layout by Gianna Wichelow. Opening night of Figaro will include All information is correct at time of printing. Photo credits are on page 53. a special presentation by the COC CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY 2015/2016 3 15-1969 - Corporate Donations - Canadian Opera Company AD EDITS_Student Ad_Ev1.indd 1 15-08-27 10:36 AM Both winter operas are pretty long, What have you been up to since Siegfried particularly. How do you Pyramus and Thisbe closed, and JOHANNES DEBUS, and the musicians get through what does the rest of your season them? look like? Wagner conductors are always revered In November, I did a very special COC MUSIC DIRECTOR for their stamina and strength, but, in concert with the San Diego Symphony, fact, I think sometimes it’s far more in which the symphony collaborated exhausting to conduct a Verdi opera with the city’s art museum. After that than to follow the natural flow of I made my debut with the National HIS LIFE, Wagner’s music. It’s so well written Arts Centre Orchestra, conducting the for all the instruments that everyone world premiere of a new piece by Ana loves to play it. Wagner, even though Sokolovic*. Then I spent some time in he loved to write longer operas, was Berlin studying the winter operas. In HIS WORK, extremely clever in terms of pacing of the middle of the Siegfried and Figaro the piece. Each act has maybe one real run, I have a concert with the Royal climax. As the conductor you have to Conservatory Orchestra on February know where those climaxes are, and 12, which we kind of squeezed into HIS CRAZY you work towards them and try not to my crazy schedule. I was released exhaust yourself and everyone else too from the spring run here because I early. If you understand that, then it’s got an offer from my old theatre in not as difficult to get through as one Frankfurt to do a production of The SCHEDULE might imagine. Cunning Little Vixen. I’m a real lover of Janácek’sv music and I’m also very BY CLAUDINE DOMINGUE How can Verdi be more difficult to happy to be back in Frankfurt and conduct than Wagner? reconnect with my old “opera family.” I think it was Daniel Barenboim who said that Verdi is always in the In a way I was really lucky that I could present and Wagner is always in the spend a long time in Frankfurt and it development of something, of getting became a kind of home for me. When somewhere. Another conductor said I left Frankfurt, I came here and found Verdi’s music is vertical and Wagner’s a new beautiful home. I have to say is horizontal. This means that Verdi’s that I’m very, very grateful for that, operas force you to jump start your and I have to remind myself how good engine at the very beginning and things turned out for me! that requires a lot of energy. And you We caught up with our busy maestro it again, and I might have a different the piece—the architecture of each have to keep that motor going at high as he prepares to conduct both operas answer, but right now I’m very happy act—trying to somehow connect the speed for the whole opera. That might On January 13, 2016, at the public this winter run. about it! very beginning with the very end, be a reason that you sweat a little bit launch of the COC’s 2016/2017 and by doing that, build this arc over more during a Verdi opera than you do season, General Director Alexander Johannes, how do you perform Do you do a lot of preparation the the whole evening. For something in a Wagner opera. Neef announced that a new contract two operas back-to-back? Isn’t it day you conduct? like Figaro, I try to capture the for Johannes Debus extends his exhausting? Yes and no. I do need some time “atmosphere” of the piece. Also, as Last year, your son was born the tenure with the Canadian Opera Well, first of all, an instrumentalist to prepare, to get into the “zone.” I always in Mozart you are trying to deal same day as a performance of Die Company through to June 30, 2021. wants to play, a singer wants to sing need this moment—and of course, with the emotions of the characters. Walküre. How did you get through and conductor wants to conduct, for Siegfried and Figaro it’s a longer Mozart is a composer of the soul and that run? *Ana Sokolovic has been commissioned to so it’s actually great when you have moment because the works are long— what the soul is going through, so, I Noah was born at 12:45 in the compose a new opera for the COC for the 2019/2020 season. La Reine-Garçon will have performances back-to-back.