View a series of eight short videos about “Fallujah” at the Annenberg Foundation’s Explore.org website.

Friday 9 August

7:30 – 8:30pm

Keefer at Columbia

Sponsored by the Vancouver Chinatown Merchant’s Association

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STANLEY  PARK  125th  ANNIVERSARY

Saturday, Sunday, 24 and 25 August / free

We will appear at 1:45pm and 3:45pm both days.

Pauline sings at Lost Lagoon, on the stage being built on Chilco Street at Alberni.

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GALA FUNDRAISER FOR CARNEGIE

Thursday 19 September, at The Cultch

8pm / tickets from $100

We present two excerpts from Pauline, a work-in-progress

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PAULINE:  Workshop No. 1

Friday, Saturday, 21 and 22 September

10am to 6pm / free

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KAY  MEEK  OPERA  SERIES:  Concert No. 1

Sunday 6 October

4pm – 6pm / tickets at various prices

Kay Meek Theatre, 1700 Mathers x 15th, West Vancouver

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VIVA  VERDI !

Celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth

Thursday 10 October

Dinner at 6pm. Concert at 8pm / tickets at various prices

Italian Cultural Centre, Grandview x Slocan

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PAULINE:  Workshop No. 2

Monday, Tuesday, 28 and 29 October

10am to 6pm / free

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CITY  OPERA  at  MINORU  CHAPEL

returning in the fall of 2013 to 6540 Gilbert Road / $18 and $20

in the park behind the General Hospital / Richmond

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PAULINE:  Special  Community  Preview

Friday 29 November 2013

7pm – 9pm at the Carnegie Centre / free

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WEST  MEETS  EAST

Sunday 19 January 2014

2pm – 4pm

100 Rivers Room

Dr Sun-Yat Sen Chinese Classical Gardens

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KAY  MEEK  OPERA  SERIES:  Concert No. 2

Sunday 23 February 2014

4pm – 6pm / tickets at various prices

Kay Meek Theatre, 1700 Mathers x 15th, West Vancouver

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PAULINE:  World Premiere

a new opera by Margaret Atwood & Tobin Stokes

directed by Norman Armour

Opens Friday 23 May 2014 / 8pm

continuing on 25, 27, 29 and 31 May

tickets at various prices

York Theatre, Commercial x East Georgia

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NOW CONCLUDED:

Sixth Annual AGM

Thursday 9 May 2013

40 people joined us at the Canadian Music Centre, and heard guest artists Rose-Ellen Nichols, Will George, pianist David Boothroyd, and composer Tobin Stokes in a first-ever duet from Pauline.

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Sing-Along Great Opera Choruses

Friday 31 May

120 people attended and sang, and saw very special guest Christopher Gaze reprising his role as Major-General Stanley — plus conductor, piano, and real anvils!

Our guest singers, who stood SATB in the audience, were Chloé Hurst, Rose-Ellen Nichols, Mark Donnelly, and Andrew Greenwood. Principal Anvillain:  Duncan Watts-Grant. Keyboard:  David Boothroyd.

7pm – 9pm / free

Carnegie Centre, Hastings at Main

Words and music at the door / free

Sponsored by the Vancity SFU Office of Community Engagement

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Italian Day on The Drive

Sunday 9 June

1pm – 2pm / free

Commercial Drive at 3rd Avenue

With soprano Diane Speirs, baritone Andrew Greenwood, pianist Richard Epp, and narrator Tom Durrie. Hundreds attended. Please see our FB page for photos.

Sponsored by the Italian Day Festival Society

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The extraordinary Norman Armour will direct our next new opera, PAULINE, by Margaret Atwood and Tobin Stokes.

We announced Norman’s appointment in late February, and the news was picked up by over 600 blogs and websites, featured in the Globe and Mail, Georgia Straight, and generously promoted by the Arts Alliance. Read more about Norman and the significance of his work here.

Pauline & Kay Meek Opera Series – Auditions

22 and 23 March. Callbacks 27 March. David Boothroyd will play, but singers may bring their own pianist if they don’t like people from Nova Scotia. Appointments via Auditions Manager Caroline Weise at auditions@cityoperavancouver.com.

Click here for musical requirements and locations.

Our new Kay Meek Theatre series opens on 6 October this year, in West Vancouver. Pauline opens in May 2014, at the restored York Theatre on Commercial Drive.

Yoshiko Karasawa

has awarded City Opera a major grant toward Pauline. It is a terrifically generous gesture from one of our city’s great patrons of the arts. Yoshi and her husband, philanthropist Michael Audain, set a high standard for enlightened giving and forward thinking. Our company – and our city – are deeply grateful. Arigatou gozaimasu.

And If You Would Like To Help…

The creative and production budget for Pauline is $300,000. If you would like to help finance this powerful new opera, we’d like to make it easy. Here’s how:

• Online at our CanadaHelps.com page
• By cheque to City Opera Vancouver, PO Box 88393,
  Vancouver BC V6A 4A6.

Tax receipts will be issued, of course. Thanks!

Opera At Oppenheimer

About 100 people braved torrential rains on Friday 1 March at Oppenheimer Park, in the heart of the Downtown Eastside. They heard Mozart and Bach, Bizet and Gounod and more. Baritone Willy Miles-Grenzberg and company pianist David Boothroyd opened with Gershwin’s I Got Plenty of Nuttin’ from Porgy and Bess. Alas, this aria makes complete sense to the people of the DTES. From the first, Willy had the audience in his hands.

It was a wonderful event, and part of this year’s Homeground Festival. Thanks to Rika Uto, Ethel Whitty, and the Carnegie Centre for having us back.

Great Opera Choruses At Carnegie – Friday May 31

City Opera Vancouver began life in 2005 as the lead company in the proposed restoration of the Pantages Theatre at Hastings x Main. A year later, we started giving concerts in the DTES. We have never stopped. Music belongs there. It lifts burdens and renews hope. On Friday 31 May, from 7pm at the Carnegie Centre, we are there again. This time, it’s different. Now, it’s your turn. We will be doing Great Opera Choruses with the audience as the singers. We will provide music and text, keyboard and a few ringers carefully planted, just to help.

We will sing several famous choruses from opera, including the Anvil Chorus — with a real anvil. It will be terrific fun. We invite residents and friends of the DTES to join us. This will be a concert like few others. ALL THANKS to Am Johal and the SFU/Vancity Office of Community Engagement, and the Carnegie Centre, for their support. They make this possible, first to last.

Fallujah Film

Wonderful recognition. Our documentary film on the meaning and making of Fallujah, the opera, has been accepted for screening in Washington DC at the 7^th Annual GI Film Festival in May. This showing will take place at the Canadian Embassy.

Congratulations to John Bolton, Opus59 Films, and to Charlie Annenberg, Tom Pollak and Jason Damata at the Annenberg Foundation / explore.org. John’s brilliant filmmaking, and the Foundation’s generous initiative and support, made it possible.

Opera America Annual Conference

is this year being held in Vancouver, and hosted by our friends at Vancouver Opera. It includes the leading professional houses in the States and Canada. City Opera Vancouver’s artistic director will be speaking on Friday May 10. Avoid him.

Juno Awards & Canadian Classics

We had great news in February. The very first release in Canadian Classics, the new recording series researched and proposed by City Opera Vancouver, has been nominated for a 2013 Juno Award.

Jeff Ryan’s extraordinary Fugitive Colours, recorded by Bramwell Tovey and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, has been nominated in the category Classical Album of the Year: Large Ensemble. This is exactly the sort of profile we hoped that Canadian Classics would earn, and the music it would record.

Congratulations to Jeff Ryan, Bramwell Tovey, Jeff Alexander and the VSO, and to series manager Raymond Bisha at Naxos Records. We’ll know the results on 21 April.

“Pauline” is a first foray into opera by Armour as well as Atwood, while the score is by Tobin Stokes, whose operatic credits include “Rattenbury”, “Fallujah” and “The Vinedressers”.

Set in Vancouver’s West End in 1913 in the last week of poet Pauline Johnson’s life, “Pauline is the poignant and powerful story of an independent woman who was Canada’s first performance artist. A writer, poet and artist generations ahead of her time, she was a proto-Canadian who anticipated the dual cultures and identities of our age.

“Norman comes to “Pauline” from a long and distinguished career in stage direction,” noted Kelly in making the announcement. “He is a man of enormous creativity and dedication who understands theatre and knows how to tell a story. His imagination, leadership and teamwork in the performing arts are unparalleled. We are deeply honoured to have him join us.”

Armour’s well-known stagings, including “Blackbird” (2009), “San Diego” (2005), “Soulless” (2004), “Hedda Gabler” (2003), “Designated Mourner” (2003), “Three in the Back, Two in the Head” (2001), and “War of the Worlds” (2000), set new standards in innovative Vancouver theatre.

He has received numerous Jessie Richardson Award nominations for his artistic output, producing efforts and community contributions, including Outstanding Director (Blackbird) and Outstanding Artistic Achievement (PuSh Festival).

“It’s an inspiring proposition and, without a doubt, one that will demand rigour, compassion and creativity – in equal measure – in order to do justice to the person and struggles of Pauline Johnson. City Opera has never feared such a challenge; they have never shied from tackling similarly big subjects.

“And for me, ‘excitement’ does not come close to describing my sense of anticipation.” Armour said.

“Pauline” will premiere at the restored and century-old York Theatre, on Commercial Drive, in May of 2014. The York seats 371 and is administered by The Cultch.

PAULINE: a chamber opera

It is a deeply moving story, set at Vancouver in the last week in the life of Pauline Johnson (1861-1913). She is dying of breast cancer, and visited by the people and spirits of her past.

PAULINE JOHNSON: Canada’s first performance artist

If what you know about her is The Song My Paddle Sings, you’re in for a surprise. Margaret Atwood has long championed Johnson as one of our most daring Canadians, an independent woman generations ahead of her time – and a fascinating subject for an opera.

In her compelling profile in Walrus Magazine, writer Emily Landau tells us why Johnson was so important in her day — and even more in ours. She was a new kind of Canadian.

PAULINE: the librettist

Margaret Atwood has conceived this story, and written the libretto. It is at once brilliant and emotionally stunning. We hear the 19^th C voice of Pauline Johnson, and the 21^st C voice of Margaret Atwood, sharing a common realm.

PAULINE: the composer

This will be composer Tobin Stokes’ fifth opera. How did we choose him?

We began with a wide review of Canadian composers. Eventually, we narrowed the field to three. Each was asked to set an aria from Margaret’s libretto. On 20 April, at the Canadian Music Centre, Judith Forst sang all three. David Boothroyd accompanied.

Each composer had been assigned a number. Each aria was judged on its merits. Only after Tobin was chosen did the jury learn his name. City Opera thanks the two other composers for their very fine work, and Christos Hatzis for his early commitment to this project.

PAULINE: the production

We plan to give the world premiere of Pauline in May 2014, at the restored York Theatre. 100 years old, the York is located at Commercial x Georgia, seats 371, and is managed by The Cultch. It’s too early to assess the acoustic, but we have great hopes… and yes, there’s a pit!

The production budget for Pauline is $300,000. We now welcome Radhika Yeddanapudi. She comes from a distinguished career leading NGOs in India and Washington DC, adores opera, and has agreed to serve as incoming Chair of our Fundraising Committee.

FALLUJAH: the opera

Two years ago, the Annenberg Foundation of Los Angeles gave us $250,000 to create a new work about the war in Iraq, and about the dread consequence of PTSD that so often follows every war. We gave its final workshop on 13 May. It libretto is by Iraqi-American Heather Raffo, and its music by Canadian Tobin Stokes.

Eight months ago, the Foundation gave us another $100,000 to produce a film about the opera. That documentary, by John Bolton and Opus 59 Films of Vancouver, is now online. We invite your comments.

City Opera in Richmond

We were delighted to again appear in the City of Richmond’s Opera at Minoru Chapel series. We gave something new: VIVA VERDI! created by Tom Durrie and David Boothroyd. On 7 November both shows sold out.

City Opera at The Kay

This week we signed an agreement with the Kay Meek Centre in West Vancouver. Starting on 6 October 2013, we begin a two-year series of opera in concert and recital. In the 400-seat Kay Meek Theatre, we’ll be presenting a wide horizon of music that will dazzle and move our audience.

Kay is a jewel located at 15^th and Mathers, easily accessible on the North Shore and (depending on traffic) 14 minutes from downtown.

Video: Our First Five Years

Today, we release a new video. It looks at the first five years of our company, and the next five to come. It may be seen here, and runs 05:47.

Produced by John Bolton and Opus 59 Films, it examines our many recitals and concerts in the DTES and Metro Vancouver, our productions of A Singalong Carmina Burana, The Emperor of Atlantis, Sumidagawa & Curlew River, Fallujah and, in May 2014, Pauline. The video is also posted online at our website.

Auditions 2013

In late March, at Dunbar Heights United Church, we will be holding auditions for Pauline, and for our new City Opera at The Kay series. In January, please consult our website, and our Facebook page, for more details.

Hazel Currie / Board Member Extraordinaire

Ours is very much a working Board, but Hazel Currie went beyond every call.

After four years’ achievement on our Board – as Treasurer, then Secretary, and Box Office Manager, Director of Volunteers, Director of Board Recruitment, and first Chair of the Fund-Raising Committee – Hazel has decided to reintroduce herself to Marcel, her husband. She will begin 2013 by retiring from the Board, and spending some completely wasted time in their new place at Whistler. What a choice.

Hazel… words cannot describe our gratitude and our appreciation for everything you have done for City Opera. 10,000 thanks barely begin to do so.

Late News Flash

Just confirmed: we will be performing at the Homeground Festival on Friday 1 March 2013. 4pm at Oppenheimer Park, DTES. Free, of course, and great fun for all. Details to come on our FB page, and through the Carnegie Centre. You’re invited!

Again, all best in 2013 — and thank you for reading this.

We thank very much the 53 persons who joined us at City Opera auditions and callbacks this year. Terrific talent flooded the room.

We will announce auditions for 2014 – 2015 at the end of this year.

Caroline Wiese

Auditions Manager

CITY OPERA VANCOUVER

auditions@cityoperavancouver.com

CITY OPERA VANCOUVER presents a unique event:  VIVA VERDI !

Date: Wednesday 7 November 2012
Times: 2pm and 7pm
Venue: Minoru Chapel, Richmond, BC  [map]

He wrote some of the most beautiful music in all opera. He used it to tell great stories, from La Traviata to Aida, Otello to Rigoletto, and Falstaff to Il Trovatore. Audiences love him the world over. No composer in opera is more often performed than Verdi.

How did Verdi achieve this? What are his secrets? Why are we so captivated by him?

Come to a unique concert and find out.

Narrator Tom Durrie (MMus, UBC) will lead us – and three wonderful singers – through the highlights of Verdi’s art and career. By the end of the concert you will know more, and feel more deeply, about this great music than you ever imagined possible. We will inform your mind, and delight your ear.

All seats $20.00, at the door.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Shadan Saul, Soprano

Mexican-born lyric soprano Shadan Saul has most recently been seen in the part of Hanna Glawari in UBC’s production of Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow. Shadan  performed at the Orpheum with the VSO in a concert highlighting this wonderful Operetta. Whilst at UBC, Miss Saul has been under the wing of the magnificent soprano Heather Thompson-Price.  Most recently Shadan was chosen by Monserrat Caballé to take part in her Gran Finale concert in Zaragoza Spain. She also had the privilege to have been chosen by Mirella Freni to take part in her Masterclass series in Modena, Italy. She has sung Mimi in La Bohéme, which she sang in the Czech Republic and at Bard on the Beach. She has been cover for the lead roles of Suor Angelica, Rusalka and Donna Anna and performed in various excerpts playing the parts of Rosalinda and Violetta. Miss Saul has also performed concerts with the VSO, the Okanagan Symphony and the North Czech Civic Orchestra. This is her first engagement with City Opera Vancouver.

Kwangmin Brian Lee, Tenor

Kwangmin created the role of Corpsman in City Opera’s new FALLUJAH. He has sung such tenor roles as Ferrando in Così fan Tutte, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Prince in Die Zauberflöte, Don José in Carmen, Rodolfo in La Bohème, Soo-Chung in The Land of Smiles, Prince Charming in La Cenerentola, Third Jew in Salomé, Sam Kaplan in Street Scene, Camille in The Merry Widow, Alfred in Die Fledermaus and Triquet in Eugene Onegin with Vancouver Opera. Brian has also sung with Vancouver Opera in Schools, UBC Opera Ensemble, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, European Music Academy, Prince George Orchestra, and many others. He recently sang Judge Danforth in The Crucible and Prince in Rusalka with UBC Opera.

Willy Miles-Grenzberg, Baritone

Willy recently created the role of Lalo in City Opera’s new FALLUJAH. He appears regularly with Vancouver Opera, performing both roles and chorus. He has appeared as soloist with the Handel Society, the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra and the New Westminster Symphony. He has also performed with the Canadian Opera Company, Tapestry New Opera Works, the Elmer Iseler Singers, the Hamilton Bach-Elgar Choir, the Scarborough Symphony and the Amadeus Choir. He has toured extensively in Canada and the U.S. as vocalist and bass-guitarist with Silk Road Music, a Vancouver-based Chinese “world music” group. Recent credits include the Officer in Vancouver Opera’s Barber of Seville, baritone soloist in Stravinsky’s Les Noces with the Vancouver Bach Choir, the lead role in Don Giovanni with Burnaby Lyric Opera, and a duo concert of opera highlights for City Opera Vancouver at the Minoru Chapel. For Vancouver Island Opera he has sung Escamillo in Carmen and Germont in La Traviata.

David Boothroyd, Pianist

David Boothroyd served ten years as Music Director for Burnaby Lyric Opera, and remains vocal coach with the UBC Opera Ensemble. He was recently appointed company pianist with City Opera Vancouver, and he maintains an active free-lance career working with many of BC’s finest singers.

Originally from Nova Scotia, Mr Boothroyd studied at Mount Allison University and the University of Western Ontario. He coached and conducted for ten years at the Music Theatre Studio Ensemble at the Banff School of Fine Arts before moving to Vancouver in 1991. Since then he has worked extensively with Vancouver Opera in main-stage and Opera in the Schools productions. In concert Mr Boothroyd has accompanied a wide variety of singers and instrumentalists, including a recent series of recitals by heldentenor Lance Ryan. During his thirty-five years in opera he has coached or conducted full productions of most of the standard repertoire plus many lesser-known works, and has assisted in the development of many newly-composed operas, including City Opera’s new work FALLUJAH.