The Dora winners were announced last night.  I don’t think there were any big surprises in the opera category.  The COC’s Rusalka scooped most awards with four including Outstanding Production.  The other three were Outstanding Direction (David McVicar), Outstanding Musical Direction (Johannes Debus) and Outstanding Achievement in Design (Lighting) (David Finn).  It was probably the best thing overall the COC has done in a long time so not shocked.

Yvette Nolan and Dean Burry won the  Outstanding New Opera category for Shanawdithit.  I’m delighted about this one as I had rather more personal emotional investment in this project than most things I see and it was an important project in so many ways. Marnie Breckenridge received the Dora for Outstanding Performance by an Individual for her performance in Jacqueline.  Also well deserved and a wee but surprising as there was every reason to give this one to Sondra Radvanovsky and usually that kind of name recognition wins out.  In any event two big wins for Tapestry (and a nod to Opera on the Avalon for being a smaller regional company prepared to invest in something relevant).

Finally, Soundstreams presentation of Two Odysseys: Pimooteewin / Gállábártnit won Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble.  In this case Nicole Joy-Fraser, Karen
Weigold, Vania Chan, Deantha Edmunds, Jennifer Taverner, Rebecca Cuddy, Bó Bárdos, Michelle Lafferty, Jonathan MacArthur, Mitchell Pady, Evan Korbut, Bryan Martin and Neil Aronof.  This was another fascinating show that deserved some recognition.

So, yes, the eight hundred pound gorilla came out on top but hardly by a knock out.