Canadian Opera Co. banks on familiarity
Season offerings include remounts of Turandot, Rusalka, Aida and The Barber of Seville
The Canadian Opera Company’s 69th season is betting on familiarity to lure ticket buyers to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
On Monday evening, the company unveiled a new season of six well-loved works from the core of the repertoire.
The 2019-20 season opens on Sept. 28 with a new co-production of Giacomo Puccini’s final (and unfinished) work Turan
dot. It will run in rep with Antonin Dvorak’s charming Rusal
ka. The curtain rises on the latter Czech-language opera on Oct. 12, running to Oct. 26.
Turandothas not been seen on the COC stage since 2004. Ru
salka was first presented by the COC in a very nice production in 2009. Next year’s run features a new production directed by Sir David McVicar, in which the great soprano Sondra Radvanovsky will sing the title role.
The new season continues in 2020 with a return of one of the most popular operas of all time, Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber
of Seville, running Jan.19 to Feb. 7. This revival of the COC’s madcap production from 2015 will be joined by Engelbert Humperdinck’s children’s classic Hansel and Gretel on Feb. 6, running to Feb. 21. The COC last presented Han
sel and Gretel to young people at Harbourfront in 2012. It has been two decades since the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm has been seen on the mainstage and this time around it will have a largely Canadian cast directed by Against the Grain Theatre’s founder, Torontonian Joel Ivany.
Tim Albery’s stark production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida from 2010 gets a revival running April 18 to May 8. Instead of Radvanovsky, who was dazzling nine years ago, we will see soprano Tamara Wilson take the title role. She is also sharing the title role in Turandot with fellow American Marjorie Owens.
The season closes with a remount of Christopher Alden’s creepy, zombie-movie 2010 staging of Richard Wagner’s
The Flying Dutchman. It will run from May 1 to 16, 2020.
“This season, we have curated a selection of operas that are magnetic for their extraordinary scores and vivid storytelling, and remarkable for their ability to tap into the emotions and motivations that unite us,” said COC general director Alexander Neef at the Four Seasons Centre during the season unveiling.
The six productions also represent familiarity and safety for the COC as well as Toronto operagoers. The company has faced several years of small but steady declines in ticket sales. There are new opera commissions in the works, but the 201920 season is free of anything new or Canadian.
The season includes the return of many familiar singers, as well as a number of new faces. The musical director for
Barber of Seville will be Italian Speranza Scappucci, one of the few female conductors in the opera world.
Visit coc.ca for details. Classical music writer John Terauds is a freelance contributor for the Star, based in Toronto. He is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Follow him on Twitter: @JohnTerauds