Those who know me are probably fed up of hearing me lament how slow the indie opera scene in Toronto has been to recover post plague.  Well here’s some good news on that front.  Opera 5 will be mounting a fully staged version of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with the proper thirteen piece chamber orchestra at Theatre Passe Muraille in June next year.  Yea!

There’s a rather exciting cast; Asitha Tennekoon (Prologue/Peter Quint), Elizabeth Polese (Governess), Krisztina Szabó (Mrs. Grose), Ryan McDonald (Miles), Thera Barclay (Flora), and Rachel Krehm (Miss Jessel – of course) with Evan Mitchell conducting and Amanda Smith directing.  There’s also a second cast of McGill students taking part in the first iteration of a new internship programme.

Performances will run June 12th to 15th at Tneatre Passe Muraille with the student cast performing on the 13th.  Tickets go on sale next month.

FWIW this will mean that Opera 5 will have had a six year hiatus in live performance and they are one of the first indie companies to return to the stage.  But let’s end on a positive note.  It’s my deep and considered belief that the way forward for opera in these difficult times lies increasingly in chamber scale works.  Piano accompaniment has huge limitations and I don’t think it’s the way to get new people excited about opera.  It’s a sort of methadone for deprived junkies!   small orchestra though and a modest sized cast can convey the real opera experience (as Britten and friends proved after WW2).  It’s an option that should be explored not just by indie companies but by regionals before they bore the audience to death with an endless series of Carmens and Traviatas.