winter 2013 | volume 20 | number 2 The SellArS/violA World of TrisTan und isolde divided loyAlTieS Mozart’s la clemenza di TiTo WelCoMeS ANd fAreWellS tHE CoC BOARD ShooTiNg starS MiCHaEl CoopEr's 30 yEars as CoC proDuCtion pHotograpHEr ial spEC 2013·2014EviEw Season pr A MESSAGe FROM GENERAl DIRECTOR ALEXANDER NEEF Be PArT of The eXPerieNCe! or better or worse, we live in an age when virtually any form of Fentertainment can be downloaded directly onto your computer, beamed into your television or your local cinema, or experienced on your smartphone as you are walking down the street; an age that has drastically altered how quickly and easily we can consume culture. And, as convenient as that is, the sheer ease of it serves to remind us how vital it is to be an active participant in culture and the arts. Because, in the end, it is the electric exchange between artists and the audience that makes the art come alive. There is simply nothing like being A gift to our friends in a great opera house and hearing a phenomenal singer live; you get goose Editorial Board: robert lamb, bumps, you are moved in body and soul Speaking of relationships, I am very Managing Director by the immediate, emotional core of the pleased and proud that Johannes’s contract roberto mauro, work. The very fact that you share the has been extended through the 2016/2017 Artistic Administrator space with the artists makes you become season. He brings such energy, talent and Jeremy elbourne, Director of Marketing part of the action, part of the work, leadership to our company, there is no limit Claudine Domingue, and finally, part of the art itself. It’s a to the possibilities he can help us explore Director of Public Relations transformative experience. and the artistic heights we can reach within Christie Darville, the creative environment that he has Director of Development Fortunately, there is no shortage of great fostered with the orchestra and chorus. We Editors: artists here at the COC. Even a small list Suzanne vanstone, are lucky to have him. He has also become of the international artists who will be with Senior Communications Manager, Editorial, COC a good friend, one with whom I share a us in the next 16 months is extraordinary: Gianna wichelow, great deal of mutual respect, an artistic Senior Communications Manager, Creative, COC Sir Thomas Allen, Harry Bicket, Alice vision and, as you can tell by some outtakes Editors E-mail: [email protected] Coote, David Daniels, Giuseppe Filianoti, from a recent photo shoot (below), a good endeavour Ferruccio Furlanetto, Ekaterina Gubanova, Design: deal of humour as well. Alan Held, Quinn Kelsey, Stephen Lord, Contributors: nikita Gourski, Development Communications officer, oC C; Jon Kaplan, Eric Owens, Sondra Radvanovsky, Carlo Art is personal, and partaking in the live Senior theatre writer at NOW magazine; Heidi Rizzi and Peter Sellars. Our own Canadian experience is about being an essential mcKenzie, Freelance Arts Journalist; Claire morley, stars include: Russell Braun, Atom Egoyan, Communications Assistant, CoC; Jennifer Pugsley, part of the artistic experience, physically, media relations manager, CoC; Katherine Semcesen, Ben Heppner, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, intellectually, emotionally. Associate Director, education and outreach, Allyson McHardy, Adrianne Pieczonka, CoC; Suzanne vanstone, Senior Communications and, of course, Music Director Johannes Now is the time to renew your 2013/2014 manager, editorial, CoC; Gianna wichelow, Senior Communications manager, Creative, CoC Debus and our wonderful orchestra and subscription. Take this opportunity to be part of the experience and connect with Photo credits are on page 30. chorus. The relationships we form with All information is correct at time of printing. real, live artistic expression! all our artists are part of what make us a Front Cover: video still by Bill viola for the opéra great company. national de paris’ production of Tristan und isolde, 2004/2005. photo: Kira perov SAve TiMe, save paper… and save the CoC mailing and printing costs! view Prelude online at coc.ca/Publications. Sign up at coc.ca/Prelude with your Patron number no later than March 31, 2013 to indicate that you no longer wish to receive a hard copy of Prelude. if we do not hear back from you, we will mail your regular issue of in April 2013. CoC music Director Johannes Debus with Alexander neef Prelude 2 Prelude Magazine iT'S ThAT TiMe AgAiN! RENeW YOUr SUBSCRIPTION By APRIL 30 A much-anticipated production of our 13/14 season will be verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. ith the 2013/2014 the Performing Arts. Here, season just the world’s most thrilling Why yoU SubscriBe wannounced, your and compelling singers, • The seat that you love • Ticket exchanges that renewal package has been conductors, directors and at the best price match your schedule sent out. Join us in 13/14 for designers join forces with and tax receipts for perhaps our most personal our marvelous chorus and • The best and most unused seats season — join us for timeless, orchestra to make you see, dynamic singers in the relevant and necessary hear and feel every note world, live and in person • Pay the subscription stories about real people and bring these spectacular price on extra tickets dealing with real human stories to life. • North America’s finest situations. Stories that opera house move us and speak to the Thank you for your heart of our most personal loyalty and commitment. interactions, weaknesses, Everything starts with you! NeW iN 13/14 triumphs and temptations. We look forward to seeing Four-opera Select subscriptions will give you more you again in 13/14. flexibility to select the dates and operas you want! As a subscriber you will continue to experience it all live in North America’s Explore our 13/14 See pages 18 to 25 for our special 13/14 finest opera house, the digital brochure at season supplement Four Seasons Centre for coc.ca Prelude Magazine 3 The SellArS/violA World of tristan und isolde By SUZANNE VANSTONE, BASED ON AN INTERVIEW BY HEIDI MCKENZIE his winter, COC audiences can look tforward to a one-of- a-kind experience with our production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde – the first time it has been presented by an opera company since its run at Paris Opera in 2005. A true collaboration between acclaimed director bill viola Peter Sellars and renowned video artist Bill Viola, it features video images by Viola that run through the entirety of the opera on a screen behind the singers. Viola is a pioneer in the medium of video art and internationally recognized as one of today’s leading artists. Together Sellars and Peter Sellars Viola have created a riveting of that process when the multi-media experience. time landscape that music Read an interview represents became essential with Peter Sellars in for placing these images into our house program, at the context of the flowing coc.ca/Publications time of Wagner’s opera.” The creative process for Viola’s work, spanning this naturally Tristan the last 40 years, has started with the music when been greatly influenced Sellars gave Viola various by Eastern culture and its conductors’ versions of the spiritual traditions. During opera on CD. Viola began stays in Japan, he became cutting a few images based fascinated by the profound on some of his own archival differences between Eastern material, but ran into trouble. and Western art. The “I really got lost, basically. all-night shadow puppet And I realized I was going performances in Java, and down the wrong path, so I the Japanese Noh plays turned at that point to the and kabuki which start libretto, which is a very in the morning and end powerful story. Once I got in the evening, have vast into the story the images time scales and are very began to come, and I spent helpful in thinking about about seven months on the Wagner because he works production of it. I returned “the most famous scene is when tristan dies… his last breath is the with long, slowly evolving word ‘isolde’.” renowned video artist bill viola makes his CoC debut to the music at the end in Tristan und Isolde. time cycles. It is like these 4 Prelude Magazine underground rivers beneath the immediate notes and melodies that you’re hearing.” Viola’s video explores the elements of earth, air, fire and water with the latter two particularly prevalent in the famous Liebestod. “I realized that one of the essential themes of Tristan und Isolde is the union of opposites. In terms of Eastern culture, you think of the yin-yang symbol, which is so brilliant because it takes black/white, night/ day, fire/water, male/female, and puts them together and viola’s video explores the elements of earth, air, fire and water. shows them that they could not exist without each other. done by lowering a man usually painted backdrops, collaborator Kira Perov has There’s a larger unity. I have down on a wire through whether it was a castle or a been one of the most intense worked with those kinds of an actual waterfall that we forest, or whatever. So artists and gratifying and life- primal elements for many constructed in the studio have always been employed changing experiences. I put years, so I realized now was and running it in reverse. in relationship to opera, every aspect of my work over the time to put into play As soon as he leaves the which is a multi-media art these last 37 years into this these experiences and these video frame, the last part form.