Auditions

Casting Chinatown

2 July 2020

ONLINE AUDITIONS

SEEKING ASIAN-CANADIAN SINGERS FOR NEW OPERA ‘CHINATOWN’

OPENS IN VANCOUVER SEPTEMBER 2021

City Opera Vancouver, a professional chamber opera company, today invited highly qualified Asian-Canadian singers to submit resumés and video materials for consideration.

CHINATOWN is a new chamber opera, now in development, by librettist Madeleine Thien with Paul Yee, Taishanese co-writer, and composer Alice Ping Yee Ho. It is scheduled to run five nights at the 668-seat Vancouver Playhouse in early September 2021. If delayed by COVID, it will run one year later.

CHINATOWN is a Western opera, with significant elements sung in the Hoisan/Toisan dialect of south China, and with a fusion orchestra of Western and traditional Chinese instruments. It runs approximately two hours, including intermission. It is a story of six Chinese Canadians and their families, set in Vancouver’s Chinatown neighbourhood. It is centred in 1961, but pivots in time across several decades.

CHINATOWN is City Opera’s fifth commission in nine years.

We will accept online materials only. Video submissions may be up to ten minutes in length, with minimal editing. We request two works of contrasting character. As part of the video portfolio, material sung in English, and Hoisan/Toisan or Cantonese, is most welcome. High-resolution image and audio quality is strongly recommended. Resumés may include up to three professional references. Please indicate if you are a member of CAE or a comparable organization. Detailed contact information is requested.

City Opera is casting six lead characters:

Hoisan-Toisan Singer / older
Low mezzo

Xon Pon / older
Baritone

Saihin / older
Tenor

Anna / younger
High mezzo

Wenli / younger
Coloratura

Eugene / younger
Tenor

ROUND ONE DEADLINE
10 September 2020

PLEASE SUBMIT PORTFOLIO TO
Kattia Woloshyniuk, Auditions Manager
auditions[att]cityoperavancouver.com

All materials received will be acknowledged.

FURTHER INFORMATION
Dr Charles Barber, Artistic Director
info[att]cityoperavancouver.com

City Opera Vancouver gratefully acknowledges the generous support of The Vancouver Foundation, Vancity Credit Union, Paul and Edwina Heller Memorial Fund, City of Vancouver Office of Cultural Services, British Columbia Arts Council, Government of British Columbia, Illahie Fund at Tides Canada / MakeWay! Doretta Lee Memorial Fund at The Vancouver Foundation, and numerous private advisors and donors in the creation and production of CHINATOWN.

BROTHER XII • CHINATOWN • BERLIN:  THE LAST CABARET • NIGREDO HOTEL • MISSING • THE LOST OPERAS OF MOZART • PAULINE • FALLUJAH • SUMIDAGAWA & CURLEW RIVER • THE EMPEROR OF ATLANTIS • CARMINA BURANA 

YEAR-ROUND CONCERTS & SPECIAL EVENTS