GREEK TO ME
Soprano Measha Brueggergosman reprises award-winning role with Opera Atelier,
Star soprano Measha Brueggergosman is returning to Opera Atelier for its just announced 2018-19 season.
The internationally renowned Fredericton-born singer, who made her Atelier debut in 2008, will return to the role that won her a Dora Award: Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo.
The opera, which debuted in 1781, tells the story of the Greek hero of the Trojan War, who is forced to choose between the life of his son and a promise he made to sea god Neptune.
Tenor Colin Ainsworth will debut in the title role in Idomeneo and play the title roles in the season’s other production, a double bill of MarcAntoine Charpentier’s Actéon (1683) and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion (1748). (Ainsworth has also been named Atelier’s first artist in residence.)
These French Baroque operas are both based on Greek myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: that of the hunter Actéon being turned into a stag by the goddess Diana in the first case; and, in the second, the sculptor Pygmalion falling in love with his statue of a beautiful woman, which is transformed into a real person.
In Actéon and Pygmalion, Ainsworth is joined by Mireille Asselin, Allyson McHardy, Jesse Blumberg, Christopher Enns, Meghan Lindsay, Cynthia Smithers and Anna Sharpe.
In Idomeneo, the supporting cast includes Wallis Giunta, Meghan Lindsay, Olivier Laquerre, Douglas Williams and Bradley Christensen.
Pygmalion will begin with what Opera Atelier calls its “first Canadian commission for solo baroque violin and contemporary dancing.” The piece, Inception, is a duet for composer and violinist Edwin Huizinga and choreographer Tyler Gledhill, an artist of Atelier Ballet.
After its Toronto run (Oct. 25 to Nov. 3), the Baroque double bill will tour to the Palace of Versailles in France and a “prestigious U.S. venue” yet to be named.
While in Versailles, Atelier will also present an expanded version of Harmonia Sacra, the production it debuted at the palace’s Royal Chapel in 2017 and premieres in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum on Feb. 15.
Idomeneo runs at the Elgin Theatre April 4 to 13, 2019.
Subscriptions are on sale now, with single tickets available Aug. 8. See operaatelier.com for information.