Opera company comes to Niagara Falls
Downtown Niagara Falls has added escape rooms, gaming stores and even axe throwing in recent months. But is it ready for opera?
Singer, musician and teacher Mary-Lou Vetere feels it’s time.
For years, the owner of The Vetere Studio in Niagara Falls has watched hundreds of people attend her shows, and seen students impress major opera singers during annual trips to Italy for her Operavision Academy. In May, she’ll open Opera Niagara at the Seneca Queen Theatre to give her singers an outlet without needing a plane ticket.
“We want to use this as in incubator for young artists to hone their talent,” she says. “Usually they have to go abroad to get this kind of training and work in this kind of atmosphere. I think we can do this right here, in our city.”
The 300-seat theatre will become a makeshift opera hall starting May 5 with an opening night gala featuring a “taster” of three classic operas: Aida, Rigoletto and La Boheme. Two more shows are scheduled June 4 and 17, with plans for a show every two months afterwards.
It will not be watered-down opera, she promises. The training is intense and the shows serious.
“We don’t use mikes. Everything you’re going to hear is the power of the human voice,” she says. “These singers are trained to sing for a house of 3,000 without a mike.
“It’s a different level of performance. It requires almost the training of an athlete.”
Vetere is especially pleased to bring her craft to Queen Street. Her grandfather Ralph Greco owned a store just up the block from the theatre.
She isn’t worried it will be deemed too ‘elite’ for the street. Opera has its roots in mass appeal.
“These were the original tales of passion and love, life or death, blood and guts,” she says. “Anybody who has a heart is going to appreciate this, because these stories are timeless.
“This theatre, luckily, has a screen above the stage that we’ll project surtitles on. Meaning it will be translated into English for you. You’re not going to be coming and not understanding what’s going on.”
The well-travelled singer “could have very easily” made her career in New York, Toronto or other more opera-friendly cities, but the ties to her hometown are strong.
“I’ve always come home and felt this is my place to be in the world,” says Vetere.
“I go to New York very frequently, I go to Italy every summer, and travel abroad to other places. But I want to share with my community what I’m doing. I think they’re going to be blown away by these people.”