Originally commissioned by arx duo for prepared vibraphone, Alyssa Weinberg’s “Tabletalk” wowed us all in this sparkling March 2021 performance by Vancouver percussion duo Infamy Too!, presented by our friends at Music on Main. Go hear what all the talk is about – you’ll be glad you did!
Leading Canadian choreographer and director Crystal Pite received a Sir Laurence Olivier Award for her astonishing single-act piece “Flight Pattern”, which premiered at the Royal Opera House in 2017. Set to the first part of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony no. 3, Pite’s enormous ensemble, in anguished, seething movement, portrays the European migrant crisis. “The story of […]
Filming at the Orpheum just prior to lockdown, the VSO – led by Maestro Otto Tausk – delivered a knockout Beethoven 5, in celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday. E.T.A. Hoffmann, writing a year after its 1809 premiere, called the Fifth an “indescribably profound, magnificent symphony”, and posterity has never faulted him for the judgement. […]
Colorful costumes, gorgeous singing, dance, laughs aplenty – from the very young to the simply young at heart, Dolce & Belcanto have something magical for all!
Jocelyn Morlock’s wistful meditation, drawing on passages by Milan Kundera and J.S. Bach, leads us into radiant acceptance – not only of the past, but of those things now that will one day be past.
Composer Alice Ping Yee Ho and writer Madeleine Thien are among Canada’s most acclaimed creators, working powerfully across a wide landscape of genres. Their opera, “Chinatown” – premiering with City Opera Vancouver in September of 2022, with vivid translations by Paul Yee – conjures Vancouver’s Keefer Street in another era, when a generation of new […]
Cris Derksen’s fusion of traditional and electronic sound takes us (and cello) to new dimensions in a musical postcard of beats and loops – sent priority post from one of Canada’s most gifted musicians!
Originally scored for harpsichord and baroque flute, Linda Catlin Smith’s Grey Broken invites us to traverse intimate, crystalline interiors, where what is now and what is past, what is seen and what is remembered, coalesce.
Another consummate artist gone too soon, Canadian legend Brent Carver – supported by Art of Time Ensemble in Dan Parr’s subtle, rustling setting – brings wistful grace to a Charles Aznavour classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOlxuXHWfHw Produced for the 2009 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, David New’s hushed portrait of iconic Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer, who passed away in August, is a view into the soundscapes that we all inhabit: spaces both vast and small, in which a single decision – to simply listen – opens worlds.
Pictured above: City Opera at ACT Maple Ridge Covid and Concerts… Musicians improvise. COVID demands improvisation. And it means taking our music to people where they live. We gave 19 PoPUpOperas last season, and plan 35 PoPUp and long-form concerts this season. So far, we have given 34: Sun-Yat Sen Classical Chinese Gardens (4 events), […]
With the coming of summer… and the new COVID rules, we resume our PoPUpOpera mini-concerts. We gave 19 last year, and are planning 35 this year – all free, and all outdoors. The first is at the gorgeous Sun-Yat Sen Classical Chinese Gardens. Another twelve will be held at underserved parks, pursuant to our new […]
City Opera Vancouver is grateful and honoured to work, create and perform on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Xwməθkwəyə̓ m (Musqueam), Sḵwxw̱ ú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl ̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
