Music

Canadian Opera Company Winter Season 2025/Madama Butterfly

Review of an impressive cast of singers, but a production with a problematic set.

Canadian Opera Company Winter Season 2025/La Reine-garçon

Review of an outstanding new Canadian opera.

Opera Review – Canadian Opera Company Fall Season 2024 / Faust by Charles Gounod

A well-sung opera with a rather bizarre set and staging that is sometimes at odds with Gounod’s melancholy score.

Opera Review – Canadian Opera Company Fall Season 2024 / Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi

The splendid production of Verdi’s Nabucco is a giant hit for the COC.

Opera Review – Canadian Opera Company Spring Season/Don Pasquale

Review of the COC’s delightful and witty production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale.

Canadian Opera Company/Hansel and Gretel

Posted on February 16, 2020, updated on February 16, 2020 by pcitron

A contemporary setting for a 19th century fairytale.

Opera Review – Opera Atelier/Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Posted on November 1, 2019, updated on November 1, 2019 by pcitron

A baroque feast for the eyes and the ears. Another gorgeous production from Opera Atelier.

Opera Review – Canadian Opera Company/Rusalka by Antonin Dvorak

Posted on October 17, 2019, updated on October 27, 2019 by pcitron

This COC production of Dvorak’s dark fairytale is perfection. Everything comes together to evoke magic.

Opera Review – Canadian Opera Company/Turandot by Giacomo Puccini

Posted on October 10, 2019, updated on October 16, 2019 by pcitron

A production by the legendary stage director Robert Wilson that is magnificent, bewildering and aggravating, all at the same time.

Opera Review – Canadian Opera Company/Verdi’s Otello

Posted on May 4, 2019, updated on May 9, 2019 by pcitron

It is starting to get embarrassing. At best I sound like the president of the Johannes Debus fan club, at worst like a stalking groupie, but once again I’m in the thrall of his conducting prowess. The maestro’s musical direction of Verdi’s Otello is simply magnificent. Otello (1887)is Verdi’s penultimate opera, and arguably his greatest. […]