THE NIGHTINGALE AND OTHER SHORT FABLES ANNA BOLENA PROGRAM SPRING 2018 #COCNightingale #COCBolena CONTENTS KEEP THE 5 A MESSAGE FROM ALEXANDER NEEF CONVERSATION 6 WHAT’S PLAYING: GOING! THE NIGHTINGALE AND OTHER SHORT FABLES Join us online to keep up with all the latest news from your opera company! 16 THE NIGHTINGALE: THE MECHANICS OF MAGIC 18 WHAT’S PLAYING: @canadianoperacompany Great opera ANNA BOLENA @freeconcertseries 28 ANNA BOLENA: THE SOPRANOS @canadianopera 30 GET TO KNOW @canadianopera_events lives here. @alexanderneefcoc ALLYSON McHARDY @johannesdebuscoc 32 BACKSTAGE AND BEYOND @canadianopera 34 DISCOVER OUR @alexanderncoc 2018/2019 SEASON 40 PAYING IT FORWARD: SHEILA PIERCEY /canadianopera 52 MANY THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS You can also sign up for our digital newsletter at coc.ca/eOpera to receive information on all programming, PATRON INFORMATION 62 special offers and much more! AND POLICIES Front cover: puppets from The Nightingale emerge from storage for this spring’s production. COC Program is published three times a year by the Canadian Opera Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written GO SCENT FREE. consent is prohibited. Contents copyright Canadian We’re proud to be the In consideration of patrons Opera Company. with allergies, please avoid Program edited by Kristin McKinnon, Publicist and Canadian Opera Company’s using perfumed beauty Content Producer, and Gianna Wichelow, Senior products and fragrances. Manager, Creative and Publications. Layout by Gianna Wichelow. All information is correct at time of 2017/2018 Season Sponsor. printing. Photo credits are on page 61. CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY 2017/2018 3 17-1801 Canadian Opera Company Program Ad_Ev1.indd 1 2017-09-01 9:47 AM #OPERANATION A MESSAGE FROM GENERAL DIRECTOR ALEXANDER NEEF One of the most compelling things about opera is how truly vast and wide-ranging the art form is. As General Director of the COC, my hope is that every season we program illuminates another aspect of opera’s extraordinary breadth. Indeed, it’s an art form that can include Stravinsky’s The Nightingale and Other Short Fables—an assortment of intimately drawn musical vignettes by a 20th-century Russian composer. Yet it’s also an art form equally itself in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, a high-wire act of bel canto singing set in the court of Henry VIII. Opera can mean an orchestra pit flooded Russell Thomas, Gerald Finley, and Tamara with 67,000 litres of water and the simple Wilson. enchantment of shadows and light, or a stunning set modelled on Shakespeare’s It’s a season that transports us from Ancient Globe Theatre, in which a drama of royal Rome to bohemian garrets in 19th-century jealousies plays out. Paris, from Greek mythology to Russian country estates. It includes modernist THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2018 In our upcoming 2018/2019 season (p. 34), orchestration of great complexity, as well as you’ll discover works like Tchaikovsky’s straightforward accompaniment for singers Inspired by the upcoming world premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian, romantic Eugene Onegin (seen and heard for to demonstrate the agility and athleticism of the Canadian Opera Company will transform its opera house into an Ancient the first time in Toronto in Robert Carsen’s their vocal technique. Roman mega-bash of fashion, art, and opera for Operanation 2018. celebrated production); the world premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian, featuring Playwright and Hadrian librettist Daniel the company debuts of international stars MacIvor—himself a relative newcomer to Thomas Hampson and Karita Mattila; the the art form—crystallized this experience of TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT OPERANATION.CA return of Christine Goerke, performing the opera’s capacity to contain multitudes with a title role in Richard Strauss’ riveting family pointed remark: “saying ‘I don’t like opera’ is Presented By psychodrama, Elektra; Mozart’s ingenious the same as saying ‘I don’t like books.’” comedy of fidelity and temptation, Così fan tutte, conducted by Bernard Labadie; one of The true richness and depth of opera means opera’s greatest love stories, and one of the there is always more to encounter and more to COC’s most popular productions, La Bohème; discover about what this art form can be and Partnering Sponsor and Verdi’s late-career masterpiece, Otello, how it can challenge our expectations with presented with an incomparable cast led by every performance. Event Sponsors COC WE WILL BRING THE TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE OF OPERA TO OUR 365 LOCAL, NATIONAL AND GLOBAL AUDIENCE EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR. CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY 2017/2018 5 Date: Mar 28, 2018 Approvals: Date: Signature: Filename_ Version# Proofreader: COC171841_OPN_HPA_Mar27_FNL Acct Mngr: Client: COC Artist (build): JV Studio Mngr: Desc: House Prgrm Ad Artist (edits): Preflighter Supplier: -- Acct. Mgr: CC Copywriter: Trim: 6.5" x 9.25" # Colours: 4/0 Art Director: 559 College Street, Suite 401 Toronto, ON M6G 1A9 Bleed: +0.3" 4 Col Process 416-323-3282 Safety/Live: -0.375" Client: File Built at: 100% (1:1) PMS PMS THE CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM THE NIGHTINGALE (in order of vocal appearance) Pribaoutki The Nightingale Conductor Allyson McHardy^ The Fisherman Johannes Debus AND OTHER SHORT FABLES Owen McCausland^ Berceuses du chat Director Lindsay Ammann The Nightingale Robert Lepage Jane Archibald Revival Director Two Poems of The Cook Marilyn Gronsdal^ BY IGOR STRAVINSKY PRODUCTION SPONSOR Konstantin Balmont Lauren Eberwein† Danika Lorèn† Set Designer Ragtime (1918) The Chamberlain Carl Fillion Four Russian Peasant Anatoli SivkoD Puppet Designer Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet: No. 1 (1919) Songs The Bonze Michael Curry COC Women’s Chorus Pribaoutki (1914) Michael Uloth^ Costume Designer The Fox Berceuses du chat (1916) PRODUCTION Chorus Solo Soprano Mara Gottler Tenor 1 ORIGINALLY Alexandra Lennox-Pomeroy Two Poems of Konstantin Balmont (1911) Miles MykkanenD Lighting Designer MADE POSSIBLE Chorus Solo Alto Étienne Boucher Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet: No. 2 (1919) IN PART BY Tenor 2 Susan Black Owen McCausland^ Puppet Choreographer Four Russian Peasant Songs (1914-1917) THE CATHERINE Chorus Solo Tenor Martin Genest AND MAXWELL Baritone 1 Stephen McClare Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet: No. 3 (1919) MEIGHEN Bruno Roy† Revival Puppet Choreographer FOUNDATION The Emperor Caroline Tanguay The Fox (1916) Baritone 2 Oleg TsibulkoD Farmyard burlesque in one scene. Libretto by the composer PAUL BERNARDS Oleg TsibulkoD Price Family Chorus Master after the Russian Folk Tales by Aleksandr Afanasyev Japanese Envoy 1 Sandra Horst^ Miles MykkanenD The Nightingale (1914) Stage Manager Conte lyrique in three acts Japanese Envoy 2 Jenifer Kowal Libretto by Stepan Mitussov, after the story Samuel Chan† SURTITLES™ Producer The Emperor’s Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen Japanese Envoy 3 Gunta Dreifelds Ragtime, Pribaoutki, Berceuses du chat, Four Russian Peasants Songs, Bruno Roy† and The Fox: by arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc. publisher and Death copyright owner. Le Rossignol (The Nightingale) and Two Poems of Konstantin Balmont by arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., Lindsay Ammann publisher and copyright owner. Johannes Debus is generously underwritten by George & Kathy Dembroski COC PRODUCTION Jane Archibald’s performance is generously sponsored by Jack Whiteside Danika Lorèn’s performance is generously sponsored by Marcia Lewis Brown A COC co-production with Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Bruno Roy’s performance is generously sponsored by Catherine Fauquier Opéra de Lyon in collaboration with Ex Machina (Quebec) Lauren Eberwein’s performance is generously sponsored by Brian Wilks, Marjorie & Roy Linden Last performed by the COC in 2009 Samuel Chan’s performance is generously sponsored by June Shaw April 13, 14, 22, May 1, 2, 10, 12, 13, 15, 19, 2018 Sandra Horst and the COC Chorus are generously underwritten by Tim & Frances Price Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto Sung in Russian with English SURTITLES™ D COC mainstage debut † Current member of the COC Ensemble Studio ^ Graduate of COC Ensemble Studio Program information is correct at time of printing. All casting is subject to change. Lothar Odinius as The Fisherman in the COC’s world premiere production in 2009. Performance time is approximately two hours, including one intermission. PART I: 45 minutes INTERMISSION 30 minutes PART II: 45 minutes CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY 2017/2018 7 DIRECTOR’S NOTE SYNOPSES CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY ORCHESTRA VIOLIN I FLUTE TIMPANI There are many myths and much speculation The Fox Marie Bérard, Concertmaster Douglas Stewart, Principal Michael Perry, Principal about the dawn of theatre. My personal This moralizing farmyard tale begins with the The Concertmaster’s chair has Shelley Brown Cock boasting of his prowess with his hens. been endowed in perpetuity by Leslie Newman* PERCUSSION favourite is simple: Man was sitting around a Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Trevor Tureski, Principal bonfire in a cave telling stories and one day The hungry Fox initially deceives the Cock, Aaron Schwebel, Associate PICCOLO Michele Colton* he stood up and used his shadow to illustrate twice enticing him down from his perch but Concertmaster Shelley Brown Ryan Scott* Jamie Kruspe, Assistant his tale. Theatre was born using nothing more each time the Cock is rescued by his friends Concertmaster OBOE HARP than light and imagination. the Ram and the Cat. After the Cock’s second Anne Armstrong Mark Rogers, Principal Sarah Davidson, Principal Sandra Baron Jasper Hitchcock* Sanya Eng*