This Tchaikovsky opera of gale-force emotionality gets an exceptional cast and conductor in its Canadian Opera Company revival
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Globe and Mail
28-06-2025
- Globe and Mail
In town and in the country, two events raise funds to support the arts
Bruce Bailey's Canadian Fête Champêtre, June 7, Ontario Countryside Arts patron Bruce Bailey opened the gates to his county pile outside of Toronto on the afternoon of June 7 for the third edition of his Canadian Fête Champêtre, a daytime gathering that raises funds for the Montreal Museum of Fine Art. This year additional institutions including the Canadian Opera Company, Calgary's Glenbow Museum, the Israel Museum and the Pelee Island Bird Observatory were also on the receiving end of some of the money raised, which totalled $1.5-million. Rogers Communications Inc. was the presenting sponsor, with additional support from the Schulich Foundation, Hatch and David and Carol Appel. Per the invitation, which listed author Margaret Atwood as guest of honour, the theme was A Masked Ball or Un ballo in maschera (after Verdi's 1859 opera). Guests followed suit, with variations on Venetian masks made of feathers and flowers and even a theatrical papier-mâché bird. Performances and speeches were given in Bailey's hayloft, which was filled for the occasion with gilt ballroom chairs fixed toward members of the Canadian Opera Company orchestra (Bailey is a devoted patron). God Save the King was sung in addition to Canada's national anthem and later they performed alongside the always-impressive soprano Ambur Braid. Also taking to the planked stage of the hayloft were dancers from the National Ballet School. A cocktail lunch overseen once again by chef Cory Vitiello followed, with guests taking to various green corners and out buildings on the property for a casual afternoon. Lovely to see was an exhibition of works curated by and from the collection of Bailey, which were displayed on the first floor of his home. A monumental work sprawling the length of the drawing room by American artist Kerry James Marshall, who Bailey has long patronized, was a standout. OCAD University Gala, May 28, Toronto The previous week, OCAD University held its inaugural gala. The school, which has trained and fostered generations of artists since its founding in 1876, opened its site on McCaul Street for the occasion. Amy Burstyn Fritz, founder of tabletop brand Misette, and Jeff Hull, president of real estate development firm Hullmark, co-chaired the event, which was cozy by gala standards, with just a couple of hundred in attendance and a handful of key sponsors (including Christian Vermast of Sotheby's International Realty, host of yours truly). This was an intentional move, said the co-chairs during their remarks. They wanted to start small and hoped to grow the gathering in years to come. This year, the nearly $400,000 raised will establish student bursaries at the school to minimize the financial barriers that come with an art and design university education. Ana Serrano, president and vice-chancellor of the university, and Jaime Watt, chancellor, both spoke between courses to the important work being done at the school and the vital need for bursaries of this nature. It was a perfect segue to the live auction, where donated works by artists including Stanzie Tooth and Steve Driscoll, both OCAD U alum, were sold for the cause.
Toronto Star
21-06-2025
- Toronto Star
Margaret Atwood guest of honour at masked ball that raised $1.5 million
On June 7 philanthropist Bruce Bailey held the third edition of his Canadian fête champêtre at his farm outside Toronto, raising $1.5 million. The gala celebrated fundraising for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Canadian Opera Company; Pelee Island Bird Observatory; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and Calgary's Glenbow Museum. Margaret Atwood was guest of honour at the party, whose theme was 'un ballo in maschera' (a masked ball), and many of the 500 guests rose to the occasion by wearing elaborate masks and costumes. Performers included a Montreal circus group, opera soprano Ambur Braid and dancers from Canada's National Ballet School.
Winnipeg Free Press
08-05-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Scrappy opera company Heartbeat thrives by reimagining the classics
NEW YORK (AP) — Dan Schlosberg remembers the day 11 years ago when his upstart opera company put on its first performance — in a yoga studio before an audience of 30 people. 'We did Kurt Weill's 'The Seven Deadly Sins' accompanied by an upright piano that we got for free on Craigslist and a violin,' recalled Schlosberg, the company's music director and one of its founders. They named their company Heartbeat Opera, 'from the idea that singers would be feet away from you,' Schlosberg said. 'And so you would be experiencing their voices at arm's length and that would make a resonance in your heart.' Today, in an era when many opera companies are struggling financially, Heartbeat appears to be thriving, with an annual budget that just passed $1 million. But true to its initial vision, the company still performs in small venues, most with a seating capacity of about 200. No small opera here 'Very few small companies take up the ambition to do the fullness of opera on a small scale,' said Jacob Ashworth, another founding member and Heartbeat's artistic director. 'We don't do small opera. We do big opera in a small space.' And despite its success with critics and audiences — performances regularly sell out — the company has deliberately maintained a modest schedule. There's typically an opera-themed drag show around Halloween and then two operas staged in New York City performance spaces in the winter and spring. Each work is condensed to 90-100 intermission-less minutes with new orchestrations that require just a few musicians. Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, thinks Heartbeat is smart not to expand too quickly — a mistake that has caused some small companies to collapse. 'Growth itself shouldn't be a goal. Excellence should be a goal,' he said. 'I always prefer companies to plan their trajectory as slow as possible so they don't overstretch and overstep.' Unlike some small companies, Heartbeat doesn't focus on new work or on bringing to light neglected old rarities. Instead, its website promises 'incisive adaptations and revelatory arrangements of classics, reimagining them for the here and now.' It's that reimagining that attracted Sara Holdren, a director, writer and teacher who first worked with the company on Bizet's 'Carmen' in 2017. 'Their approaches to the storytelling feel extremely of our world and about our world,' she said, 'without falling across that line into a sort of trite topicality where you say, 'Oh yes, I understand a relevant-with-a-capital-R political point is being made here'.' For Beethoven's 'Fidelio,' Heartbeat went to prisons and recorded the voices of incarcerated people, who appeared on video singing the Prisoners Chorus. For Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin,' the two main male characters became lovers, reflecting the composer's own sexuality. Salome in a pink skirt and sneakers And for Richard Strauss' 'Salome' this season, the teenage title character was dressed in a frilly pink skirt and sneakers; John the Baptist was imprisoned on stage in a cage with transparent sides instead of in an underground cistern; and during the Dance of the Seven Veils, it was a lascivious Herod who stripped off his clothes, not Salome. Heartbeat's casting for 'Salome' reflected the premium it places on theatrical values in addition to vocal ability. Baritone Nathaniel Sullivan, who portrayed John the Baptist, recalled that 'a big part of the audition was just straight acting. And in the rehearsals, there was a real focus on the storytelling. 'I haven't experienced that in a lot of other opera companies to that extent,' he said. Soprano Summer Hassan, who was cast as Salome, admits she was nervous at first 'because I had never done a role like this where I am the title character. 'I was really doubting myself, thinking how do I make this girl look so young?' she said. 'And they said, your physicality will do that on your own. Make her look confident and you will make her look like a confident child. They gave me the tools to figure out it was within me.' Perhaps the most striking aspect of this 'Salome' was the re-orchestration by Schlosberg. Instead of more than 100 players as called for in the original, he took a cue from the opening notes on a clarinet and scored the piece for eight clarinetists (who also played other instruments) and two percussionists. Heartbeat's final local offering of the season will be Gounod's 'Faust,' to run at the Baruch Performing Arts Center from May 13-25. The devil made her do it 'I had mentioned to Jacob that I really love devil stories,' said Holdren, who is directing the production. 'And I was fascinated with the idea of taking something so big and so weighed down with history and assumptions and seeing how much we could crack it open and blow the dust off.' She sees Mephistopheles less as a 'mustache-twirling villain' and more as 'a figure of hunger and loneliness slipping into the vacuums that human beings create when they are so desperate or disgusted with life that there's an opening for him.' Her production will be set in contemporary times, sung in French but with new English-language dialogue, and it will make heavy use of shadow puppetry. It's the first Heartbeat offering for which Schlosberg has not done the re-orchestration. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. That task fell to Francisco Ladrón de Guevara, a Mexican violinist and composer who has scored the opera for seven musicians, most of whom play two instruments, including Ashworth, who will play violin and mandolin and also conduct. Taking Heartbeat Opera on the road Schlosberg will be back doing the arranging for a rare Heartbeat foray outside the city this summer. The company has been invited to stage a revised version of Samuel Barber's 'Vanessa' at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts. 'I'm really excited by what they've been doing, particularly in reimagining the classics for contemporary times,' said Raphael Picciarelli, co-managing director of the festival. For Heartbeat's debut in Williamstown, the festival is setting up a new performance space that should make the company feel right at home. It's in an abandoned grocery store, and there will be seats for just over 200 people.
