First the bad news.  Calgary Opera have cancelled their fall production of Fidelio citing uncertainty over rehearsal, performance and audience management issues.  I’m not surprised and I expect we will hear something similar from the COC next week.  The performing arts really don’t seem to figure at all on the Ontario government’s priorities or plans which isn’t a surprise but is a bit depressing.  There’s information here on what the industry is doing to try and get a change of priorities  with tools you can use to help.

In better news Against the Grain will be premiering a film of Holst’s Savitri on June 23rd at 8pm ET.  The production marks Miriam Khalil’s directorial debut and the cast includes Meher Pavri as Sāvitri, Andrew Haji as Satyavān, and Vartan Gabrielian as Yama, God of Death.  There will be a chamber ensemble conducted by Simon Rivard and the performance will be bookended by Arnab Chakrabarty on sarod and Shahbaz Hussain on tabla playing original Hindustani music.  The film is free and will be available until July 11th but registration is required.

On a slightly different note and not really opera at all I. wanted to do a shout out for my neighbourhood arts organisation Jaami Esplanade.  As well as live street theatre and music they have been making some short films based on two artists from different disciplines creating a performance more or less on the fly.  Habitués of the Toronto opera world will recognise one Teiya Kasahara!  Anyway the completed films (the series is still a WIP) can be found here.  Since March 13th last year the only live performances I’ve seen have been Jaami shows and I’m really grateful to Isorine and the team for making them happen.