Without notice or fanfare the COC season announcement landed in my email inbox at 11.30 this morning.  I kind of miss the old 10am press conference which at least offered an opportunity to ask about the rationale of some of the decisions.  I guess though that the number of people writing about opera in Toronto these days would fit in a phone box so maybe it’s too much to hope for.  There are some mildly surprising aspects to the announcement.  There’s no Mozart or Puccini nor, more consequential, any sign of the various new opera projects that COC has/had under development which do have a bit of a habit of disappearing without trace.  There’s also no “second stage” production.  I guess that experiment is done.  So it’s six main stage productions in the traditional three pairs. Continue reading →