Category Archives: Toronto opera news and views

Opera 5’s 2026 Toronto Opera Festival

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Following on from this year’s successful festival at Theatre Passe Muraille Opera 5 are once again running a sort of mini festival at that venue in June next year.  There will be two programmes.  There’s a Puccini double bill of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi which, I’m guessing will be given with chamber ensemble accompaniment.  Rachel Krehm headlines as the theologically unsound nun while Gianni Schicchi has Greg Dahl in the title role.  Krisztina Szabó will appear in both operas as Princess Zia and Zita.  Jessica Derventzis directs and Evan Mitchell is in charge of matters musical.  This one runs June 3rd to 7th. Continue reading →

Tapestry announces new main stage production

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This season’s main stage production from Tapestry Opera will be Ten Days in a Madhouse; music by Rene Orth, music by Hannah Moscovitch.  It’s based on the true story of 19th century journalist Nellie Bly who pretended to be insane in order to expose the conditions women patients were being kept under at New York’s Women’s Lunatic Asylum.  It’s the Canadian premiere of a Tapestry/Opera Philadelphia commission co-presented with the COC and Luminato.  This follows a critically acclaimed run last year at Opera Philadelphia.

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Looking forward to December

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‘Tis the season of family holiday shows and Messiahs.  Not that I’m planning to do much of either but here are some shows that you might be interested in…

  • On December 7th, the earliest of the Messiahs.  Toronto Choral Society have a matinée performance at Koerner Hall.  Soloists include Quinn Kelsey and Teresa Tucci .
  • The Ensemble Studio have a noon hour concert on December 9th in the RBA
  • Rogers vs Rogers opens at Crow’s Theatre on December 10th.  This is another adaptation by Michael Heaney of a book about Toronto shenanigans.  He was also responsible for The Masterplan.  Previews are the 2nd to the 9th with the run extending to January 3rd.

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A couple more interesting things this week

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I’ve only just found out about a couple of events this week that may be of interest.

Soulpepper has a free showing of Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 masterpiece The Seventh Seal.  It’s on Wednesday, November 12th at 7pm and it’s free.  If you have seen The Comeuppance and the movie you’ll get the connection!  If you haven’t seen the movie I would say it’s one of the most important post war films.  It has a fantastic performance by Max von Sydow as a world weary crusader and an equally fine one by Bengt Kerot as Death.  The cinematography, by Gunnar Fischer is exceptional.  No gimmicks.  No special effects.  Just a very beautiful and moving film.

Then on Sunday November 16th at 7.30pm at Arrayspace Lindsay McIntyre is performing and producing Morton Feldman’s Three Voices in which the live singer works with two pre-recorded vocal tracks.  It’s a most interesting hour long piece.  I recently reviewed a recording of it by Dory Hayley for La Scena Musicale.  Tickets for that are “at the door” or here.

Coming up in November

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Here’s what’s coming up next month as best I know.

  • Canadian Stage’s presentation of Robert Lepage’s The Far Side of the Moon opens at the Bluma Appel Theatre on November 1st and runs until the 16th.
  • In the RBA lunchtime series we have the Wirth Vocal Prize winner in recital on the 6th
  • Branden Jacob-Jenkins’ The Comeuppance is playing at Soulpepper.  Previews are October 30th to November 5th with opening night on the 6th and the run continuing to November 23rd.

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Tapestry is back with a bang

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Tapestry Opera has announced its first full season since leaving the Distillery District and it looks like “back to the future”.  Most of the usual (much missed) stuff is there.  So here’s the line up:

  • October 16th-19th – Tapestry Briefs: Under Where? – Nancy & Ed Jackman Performance Centre.  Briefs is back with a new line up of composers and librettists including, I’m delighted to say, the Gray sisters.  Basically this is the performance end of the LibLab where we get to see the best of what the workshops produced.  Always worth seeing.
  • January 16th and 17th – LOL: Laughing Out Lonely – Nancy & Ed Jackman Performance Centre.  This is a solo opera by the Danish company OPE-N.  Created by Matilde Böcher and Asger Kudahl and starring Morten Grove Frandsen inhabiting multiple on-line personas, it explores the darker side of social media.
  • March 26th – 29th – Ana Sokolović’s Love Songs – Nancy & Ed Jackman Performance Centre.  Soprano Xin Wang takes us on a muklti-lingual journey through love and loss in a version of the Sokolovic work adapted for the stage by Michael Hidetoshi Mori.
  • June 16th – 21st – Super Sekret Opera – Bluma Appel Theatre.  This yet to be announced opera will be fully staged with orchestra and chorus.  All I can tell you is that is “the creation of a Canadian playwright you already admire and a composer the New York Times has hailed as one of the most important voices of our time”.

Welcome back Tapestry!

Falling into September

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Life slowly returns to some version of normal.. Here’s what I’m seeing so far for Sptember.

  • 5th September – Apocryphonia have a PWYC concert at St. Thomas’ Huron Street featuring music from the Hundred Years War.
  • 11th September – Lucy Kirkwood’s The Welkin opens at Soulpepper.  Previews are the 4th to the 10th with the  run extending to October 5th.

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Free pizza!

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German food conglomerate Dr. Oetker are promoting their new up-market frozen pizza offering, Suprema, in a unique way. They have commissioned a 15 minute opera called, unsurprisingly, Suprema from the good people at Opera Revue.  It’s a jolly romp about a sculptor (Danie Friesen) whose creation (Alex Hajek) comes to life and gets hooked on pizza.  Accompaniment is by Claire Harris on piano and pre-recorded strings (Drew Jurecka).  It’s short, well executed and fun.

It’s free, you don’t need a ticket and there is rather good free pizza after each show.  It’s playing in the TD Music Hall (i.e upstairs at Massey Hall).  There are three shows this afternoon and a bunch next weekend.  Times and so forth here.

Photo credit: Darryl Edwards

July 2025

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July in Toronto is really all about two festivals; the Toronto Fringe Festival and Toronto Summer Music.

The Fringe runs July 2nd to July 13th and there are more than 100 shows on 20+ stages.  There’s a huge range of performance styles; drama, comedy, clowning, musicals, stand up etc.  Most shows run an hour or less and the standard ticket price is $18.75 though there are plenty of discounts plus multi show passes as well as free events at the Fringe Hub which this year is at Soulpepper with events also across the street at Old Flame brewery.  Quality varies a lot.  Some shows are excellent; Monks last year would be a case in point, but others a re a bit meh.  But that’s the point really.  You can see what looks interesting to you.  All the details are here.

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Coming up at Toronto Summer Music – MISSING

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I’ve been following the development of MISSING; an opera with text by Marie Clements and music by Brian Current since early 2017. There’s an article principally about the project in the Summer 2017 edition of Opera Canada. But I’ve yet to see the opera on stage. It’s had multiple productions in Western Canada but this July will see it’s first performance east of the Lakehead when Toronto Summer Music present it in concert format. That’s at Koerner Hall on July 24th.

Marion Newman in MISSING at Pacific Opera Victoria – Photo: Dean Kalyan

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