Opera Canada

Opera Canada is a quarterly magazine focused on music, produced by Opera Canada Publications. It holds the distinction of being the longest-running arts magazine in Canada. This independent publication operates separately from the Canadian Opera Association. In the 1990s, alongside Opera and Opera News, it was recognized as one of the top three opera magazines in the English-speaking world.

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Edmonton Opera | Die Walküre | Opera Canada

2 weeks ago | operacanada.ca | Bill Rankin

Edmonton Opera continued its programming of miniature versions of Wagner’s Ring Cycle on June 5th with the first of six performances of Die Walküre at the Citadel Theatre.
Canadian Opera Company | Cavalleria rusticana | Opera Canada

1 month ago | operacanada.ca | Joseph So

The Canadian Opera Company ended its 2024/25 season with an extra treat for its audience. Instead of the usual spring offerings of two full-length operas, there was the addition of a single concert performance of a one-act work, the beloved Italian opera not seen locally for nearly a quarter century, Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana.
Vancouver Opera | Madama Butterfly | Opera Canada

1 month ago | operacanada.ca | Hadani Ditmars

Thanks to new Trumpian realities and a uniformly excellent cast, Vancouver Opera’s season closer Madama Butterfly is a hyper-relevant must see. What can you say about the timeliness of an opera that explores the dark side of American imperial adventures (with “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a leitmotif) that opened a few days before our national election?
Canadian Opera Company | Wozzeck | Opera Canada

2 months ago | operacanada.ca | Joseph So

Last staged by the Canadian Opera Company as its final production at the old Hummingbird Centre (now Meridian Hall) in 2006, Wozzeck is making a triumphant return to the COC, in the celebrated production by South African artist William Kentridge that opened last Friday at the Four Seasons Centre. This production premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 2017, reaching the Paris Opera and the Met later. Met Live in HD fans may well have seen it in the Cineplex cinemas at the time.
Manitoba Opera | La bohème | Opera Canada

2 months ago | operacanada.ca | Holly Harris

It may have taken 11 long years, but Manitoba Opera’s latest production of Puccini’s La bohème proved well worth the wait. Its tear-soaked tale of the ragtag bohemians living and dying in 1830s Paris is still able to pull hard at the heartstrings while packing an emotional punch.
Calgary Opera | Bluebeard's Castle and Gianni Schicchi | Opera Canada

2 months ago | operacanada.ca | Kenneth DeLong

Calgary Opera’s final offering of its 2024/25 season consisted of a double bill of two one-act operas, Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. While these two operas occupy different sound worlds, both received their first performances in the same year: 1918. Much care and effort went into the production of both operas, and with excellent results, most notably in the visual and dramatic side of things.
Glenn Gould School | Die Zauberflöte | Opera Canada

Mar 20, 2025 | operacanada.ca | Michael Jones |Jennifer M. Tung

As their spring opera, the vocal department at the Glenn Gould School presented a fully-stage production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at Koerner Hall. Koerner Hall is an unusual venue for staged opera. It has no backstage area, no wings and no fly space (although they cleverly managed to fly in a noose for Papageno’s “suicide” aria in the second act). It has, however, an extraordinary acoustic, and even the least mature voices were well-balanced with the orchestra and well-heard in the hall.
Vancouver Opera | Flight | Opera Canada

Feb 10, 2025 | operacanada.ca | Hadani Ditmars

My expectations for the Vancouver Opera production of Jonathan Dove’s Flight were high. Not only has Dove been dubbed “the Mozart of the 21st century,” but the 2020 Pacific Opera Victoria production by the legendary Canadian duo of set designer Ken MacDonald and director Morris Panych, which has been revived here with some revisions, was apparently Dove’s favourite.
Canadian Opera Company | La Reine-garçon | Opera Canada

Feb 6, 2025 | operacanada.ca | Joseph So

Following the highly successful Puccini warhorse Madama Butterfly that opened the winter season at the Canadian Opera Company (COC) winter season, the company followed it with something entirely different, La Reine-garçon, a new opera and the first co-commission between Opéra de Montréal and the COC. It featured an excellent all-Canadian cast. Given the relatively conservative Canadian opera audience when it comes to new works, it was gratifying to witness the very enthusiastic ovation at the end.
Edmonton Opera | Bluebeard's Castle | Opera Canada

Feb 5, 2025 | operacanada.ca | Bill Rankin

Edmonton Opera billed its second show of its 61st season as Bluebeard’s Castle, Béla Bartók and librettist Béla Balázs’s early 19th-century macabre tale of romantic doom, possibly even serial murder. And it was Bluebeard’s Castle, in a way. Although the ways in which it wasn’t were striking. Bartók’s score calls for nearly one hundred players. This adaptation by British composer/arranger Stephen Higgins featured seven players, one on a part, without any percussion, a significant absence.