Tapestry Opera and Nightwood Theatre’s new digs at 877 Yonge Street are now officially open.  I was unable to attend Saturday nignt’s opening gig and party but I did get to attend the free concert for the local community in the afternoon and get a tour of the premises.

It’s a really good addition to Toronto’s art venues.  The location is great.  It’s a few minutes walk north of Bloor/Yonge so about as accessible by TTC as anywhere in the city.  There’s a flexibly configurable performance space that seats 140-150 and, of course, there’s the Bösendorfer piano.  There’s a decent sized rehearsal hall, a green room, office space for both companies and the usual amenities.  It feels a lot more spacious than the old Distillery District premises.  And, I’m told by an organiser of indie concerts, the rates are very reasonable!  All good news.

The concert was interesting.  The audience was mostly drawn from the neighbourhood and the vast majority had never attended a Tapestry event before,  I’d hazard a guess that they’d never heard of Tapestry!  In the circumstances the concert was very cleverly constructed.  It began with two “opera pops”; the “Flower duet” from Lakmé, sung by Midori Marsh and Reilly Nelson with Stéphane Mayer at the keys, and the “Habañera” from Carmen sung by Korin Thomas-Smith.  I din’t make that up.  Then there were a few musical theatre numbers to soften the audience up a bit more before moving onto Tapestry rep with some Ana Sokolović from Reilly, some Colin Eatock from Korin and Ava’s aria from Rocking Horse Winner from Midori who also gave us a sneak preview of the upcoming Sanctuary Song.  What struck me was that the audience seemed every bit as appreciative of the unfamiliar stuff; even the fairly demanding Sokolović setting of “O mistress mine”.

Overall, a fun afternoon, an auspicious occasion and the culmination of a huge effort by Michael Mori and the team!

Photo: Dahlia Katz