SOPRANO RETURNS
Khalil to star in La Bohème
Back in 2010, the young Canadian-lebanese soprano Miriam Khalil made her Edmonton Opera debut singing the role of Musetta in Puccini's much-loved La Bohème. She was then fresh out of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, and Bill Rankin, writing in Opera Canada, declared that “she stole the Café Momus Act.”
Roll forward to February 2022, and Khalil will be returning to the Jubilee and to La Bohème, but this time singing the lead role of Mimi. In the intervening years, she has created an international career, and at the same time gained a reputation as an artist who is prepared to push the operatic boundaries and explore the intersections of different music traditions.
Khalil will also be singing the role for the first time as an Edmontonian. This week she takes up her new post as a vocal instructor at the University of Alberta after recently moving from Toronto with her husband, Joel Ivany, program director for opera at the Banff Centre, and their two children.
“It was serendipitous,” she says. “I love teaching. And then this position came up, and I love Edmonton. And so I thought, I'll just apply and see, and there was no grand scheme of things. I honestly didn't know if I would even be interviewed.”
FINDING HER PLACE
They've already bought a house in Edmonton, and Khalil is delighted that they've not only met more neighbours in two weeks than they had in Toronto in two years, but her sevenyear old son immediately made friends with the neighbouring children.
“I'm really excited about getting to know the city, but also being able to participate in the city and be part of the culture of creating and recreating and making new things happen. Obviously, I'll be figuring things out at the beginning, but I'm very excited about getting to know what Edmonton is as a community.”
Among her achievements through the last decade has been co-founding the award-winning Against the Grain Theatre, an experimental opera company based in Toronto. In addition to doing its own productions there have been collaborations with the Canadian Opera Company (COC), the Banff Centre and CBC.
Khalil will continue working as the company's associate artistic director using the virtual approach the pandemic has necessitated. Against the Grain Theatre has its own Youtube channel currently showing a movie of Holst's opera Savitri, and two experimental works: a new interpretation of Handel's Messiah in six languages, and a reimagining of Mozart's Così fan tutte.
A VOICE WITH GLOBAL REACH
The soprano has been singing works that cross cultural boundaries. Her compelling recording of Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov's masterful song cycle Ayre, with texts in seven languages and diverse musical influences, was nominated for a Juno Award in 2019.
She's also created, directed, produced and sang an online Arabic video recital, Songs My Parents Taught Me, which charts her own childhood journey. In March, she premiered Āshéghāné-hā, a song cycle by Iranian composer Afarin Mansouri.
“I'm not an Arabic singer,” she explains. “I'm a classical singer, but I like to sing in Arabic as I grew up singing in Arabic.”
Khalil wants to bring that eclecticism to her teaching at the university.
“Canada is relatively young,” she points out, “and we're trying to make classical music part of the fabric, but we're doing it in someone else's tradition. So we've got to bring in our own, and that means multicultural — understanding what our fabric is and intertwining it together. I think it's super important.”
INSTITUTIONAL GAINS
Tenor John Tessier, who himself retired from an international career to be associate professor of voice at the University of Alberta, is delighted Khalil is joining the Department of Music.
“It's a real win for us to have her in the faculty,” he says. “When you have a new person coming in, it opens up opportunities for collaboration that are so good for the university.”
It was a vocal teacher who changed Khalil's own life. She grew up singing pop music, and after coming with her family to Canada at the age of seven, she joined a choir. At 14, still singing pop music, she started taking vocal lessons from a teacher named Karen Spicer who told her that she thought Khalil had the kind of voice for operatic singing.
Spicer suggested trying some lieder. Khalil agreed, and for every pop song she brought to study, she had to bring an art song in a different language. Soon, the pop songs were dropped.
After studying at the University of Ottawa and working with the COC Ensemble Studio, her big break came while understudying the part of Cleopatra in Handel's Julius Caesar at the U.K.'S famed Glyndebourne Festival. The Cleopatra fell ill during a performance, and Khalil took over from the middle of Act 1.
In 2019, she sang Mimi to great acclaim with the Canadian Opera Company and Calgary Opera. Music critic Kenneth Delong wrote in the Calgary Herald, “Many companies will be happy to have a Mimi as natural on stage as this, and who can bring a tear to the eye in moments of passion or pathos.”
As she herself says, “I really like using my gifts, whether it's singing or sharing what I've been given, because I've been given a lot.”
And Edmonton has now been given this gifted talent.
I really like using my gifts, whether it's singing or sharing what I've been given, because I've been given a lot. MIRIAM KHALIL