I guess Verdi’s Nabucco is even more closely associated with the Risorgimento than his other works so it’s not perhaps surprising that, for his 2017 production for Verona, Arnaud Bernard made the connection explicit. We are in Milan during the Five Days. La Scala; which does duty as the Temple, the Hanging Gardens and itself, stands in the middle of the huge performance space of the Arena di Verona. Italian and Austrian soldiers, including cavalry, ride around the arena or clamber over the terraces. It’s wild and spectacular but it’s more than that.
At the COC nothing really blew me away in 2018. Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian was better than I had feared and, I think, with revisions could be rather good. In the form we saw it, it felt somewhat overblown and didactic. It was also great to see Robert Carsen’s Eugene Onegin finally get an airing in Toronto; especially with a very good, young, largely Canadian cast. Nothing from Opera Atelier really floated my boat this year though. Are Against the Grain or Tapestry major companies now? One could argue that they are sailing under false colours in describing themselves as “Indy”. In any event they each provided one of the year’s highlights with the spectacular Orphée from the former and the best new work of the year; The Overcoat, from the latter. 
There have been a series of interesting announcements about composers and commissions from the Canadian Opera Company recently. First is the announcement that Ian Cusson is to become composer-in-residence from August 2019. Cusson is part Métis and, readers may recall, featured as half of 
Here’s what’s coming up over the holidays and into January.
operaramblings 