Latest News « City Opera Vancouver

Norman Armour to direct Pauline

February 27, 2013/in Home, News Items

PuSh Festival co-founder Norman Armour has been tapped to direct Pauline, the first opera to feature a libretto by Canadian literary star Margaret Atwood, City Opera Vancouver president Nora Kelly announced today.

City Opera News / December 15, 2012

December 16, 2012/in Mailout, Newsletter

Best of the coming season – and year – to all our friends! The year just passed has been exceptional. We gave concerts and recitals, made a film, and concluded the two-year creation of Fallujah. Now, we build to an exciting new project… PAULINE: a chamber opera It is a deeply moving story, set at […]

“Fallujah” E-Letter – Special Edition

July 6, 2012/in Mailout, Newsletter

City Opera Vancouver Awarded $100,000 The Annenberg Foundation of Los Angeles has given City Opera $100,000 to make a film documentary about our new chamber opera, FALLUJAH. This gift is in addition to the $250,000 creation grant from the Foundation that we announced in February of 2011. It remains the largest opera commissioning grant in […]

Fallujah receives major media attention with AP story and video

July 1, 2012/in News Items

Fallujah describes two lives – one American, one Iraqi – that intersect with dread consequence at the Battle of Fallujah in 2004. It examines the agonies of guilt and conscience and pride when a warrior returns home. On 2 July 2012, the Associated Press published worldwide a major feature story on the making and meaning of Fallujah. On the same day, they released an original AP film to their 600 television outlets worldwide.

City Opera News / June 21, 2012

June 21, 2012/in Mailout, Newsletter

Fallujah We have successfully concluded this two-year project. It began with a $250,000 commission from the Annenberg Foundation of Los Angeles, and its Explore.org affiliate. Inspired by the life and work of Christian Ellis, the music for this new chamber opera is by Canadian Tobin Stokes, and its libretto by American Heather Raffo. We have […]

City Opera News December 15, 2011

December 12, 2011/in Mailout, Newsletter

A Great Year For City Opera Thanks to you, your support, and your belief in chamber opera, this has been a great year for our company. In calendar 2011, we: Received $250,000 USD from the Annenberg Foundation / Explore of Los Angeles. This supports the creation of a remarkable new opera set at Fallujah and […]

The Miracle of Heifetz

November 2, 2011/in CD / DVD reviews

Listen to Heifetz for yourself, and see if you don’t agree with Howard Taubman, longtime music critic at the New York Times, who once offered a retort to the charge that Heifetz was “a splendid, heartless violin playing machine” by saying that “anyone with ears to hear knows this charge is rubbish.” “For me and many others,” Taubman wrote, “he was a nonpareil of violinists. He had everything—technique in superabundance, purity of tone, taste, loftiness of feeling.”

City Opera News / September 28, 2011

September 27, 2011/in Mailout, Newsletter

Canadian Classics: New Recording Series Launched In Vancouver Back on 15 April 2007, City Opera proposed the creation of a new recording series, Canadian Classics. Klaus Heymann (the owner of Naxos, the world’s largest classical recording company) said “yes”. Work began. On 24 September, we launched Canadian Classics right here in Vancouver. This is a […]

City Opera News / June 17, 2011

June 17, 2011/in Mailout, Newsletter

Annenberg / Explore Chamber Opera This project, City Opera’s second commission, is rolling ahead. Based on the real-life experiences of Christian Ellis (USMC, ret’d), who fought at the Battle of Fallujah in 2004, this is one of our most unusual and powerful creations. It is funded by a landmark $250,000 grant from the Los Angeles-based […]

Shirley Verrett At Carnegie Hall / 1965

April 4, 2011/in CD / DVD reviews

Much about the career of Shirley Verrett (1931-2010) went in unusual directions. She began her career as a mezzo, and ended as a soprano. She was a black woman who demanded attention and respect from a white-dominated world in opera. Born into a strict Seventh Day Adventist family, little about her early ambition was supported […]

Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Brahms Requiem

April 4, 2011/in CD / DVD reviews

Johannes Brahms never wrote an opera. Nor did Mahler, nor Bruckner. But in every regard the dramatic impulse was present in all, and in this marvelous new recording of Ein deutsches Requiem, Op 45, it dominates. When first conducting the German Requiem as a grad student at Stanford, I was perplexed by the issue confronting […]

February 21, 2011/in Mailout

City Opera Receives $250,000 To Create New Chamber Opera Largest Commissioning Grant In Canadian History City Opera Vancouver’s Board of Directors is delighted to announce the company has been awarded a commissioning grant of $250,000 US from the Annenberg Foundation, in connection with the philanthropic multimedia organization Explore. This extraordinary sum is believed to be […]