Outgoing COC director fulfils dream
Canadian Opera Company’s Alexander Neef will oversee production of Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’
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
Canadian Opera Company general director Alexander Neef will leave the organization at the end of next season with his biggest dream realized: a production of Richard Wagner’s final opera.
All four-plus hours of “Parsifal,” one of the grandest of late-19th-century operas, will open the 2020-21season on Sept. 25 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. There will be seven performances running to Oct. 18.
When Neef arrived in Toronto in the fall of 2008, he confided that his fondest desire would be to see the company present “Parsifal.” It is inspired by Arthurian chivalry and suffused with Christian imagery. The COC’s visually stunning production is directed by Canadian François Girard and designed by Michael Levine. It was first seen at the Metropolitan Opera in 2013.
Neef will leave the COC at the end of next season to run the Paris Opera, where he worked before he came to Toronto.
The rest of Neef’s farewell season is a mix of guaranteed box-office favourites paired with more esoteric offerings. As has been the case in recent seasons, the COC is presenting its productions in three pairs.
“Parsifal,” with its elaborate staging, 100-plus-member orchestra and a cast of nearly two dozen, is partnered with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s perennial favourite, “The Marriage of Figaro,” running Oct. 20 to Nov. 7. This is a remount of the odd Claus Guth production the company premiered in 2016.
The operatic warhorse “Carmen,” by Georges Bizet, is to run Jan. 23 to Feb. 21, 2021.
This is also a COC remount, directed by Torontonian Joel Ivany, whose “Hansel and Gretel” is onstage right now.
Carmen’s companion on the winter calendar is “Katya Kabanova” by Leos Janacek. This tragic story of adultery was a personal favourite of previous COC general director Richard Bradshaw. The searing drama will come to life in a stark production originated by the English National Opera in 2010. David Alden is the director.
Neef’s 13 years of leadership will run to its end with a duo led by Guiseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata,” April 17 to May 16, 2021. Joining it is “Orfeo ed Euridice” by Christoph Willibald Gluck, created by
Robert Carsen.
The biggest draw in “La Traviata” will be soprano extraordinaire Sondra Radvanovsky as Violetta. Fans of early music should note that the wonderful English counter-tenor Iestyn Davies will sing the role of Orfeo.
As is always the case at the COC, the season’s casting is a mix of local and international talents.
Having surefire draws is not just something the COC needs. Opera Atelier will start the 2020-21season with a remount of its fine production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” at the Elgin Theatre from
Oct. 22 to Nov. 1.
The company’s other offering will be a pairing of Henry Purcell’s beloved “Dido and Aeneas” with an extended version of “The Angel Speaks,” a new work the company has been developing for the past couple of years. The double bill will run at the Elgin Theatre Feb. 20 to 27, 2021.