Sunday Read: First-Person - Mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy

Moving into the theatre and other things on my To Do list.

Every day I experience the give and take of this career I've chosen.  This experience is weighing heavily on the give side of the balance.

by Allyson McHardy, mezzo-soprano

Last week we moved into the theatre with our production of Handel's Semele at the Canadian Opera Company. This is the moment when the final run through in the rehearsal hall is done and we are on the stage, ready for the technical elements, costumes, wigs and the orchestra.  

Until a few short years ago this was not something we looked forward to in Toronto.  I remember the excitement in Paris of moving our Mozart into the Palais Garnier.  And in San Francisco moving into the The War Memorial Opera House, one of the finest in North America.  If you followed the advice of the music staff to "sing up and out" you really cannot go wrong.  We now have the same experience with our wonderful new opera house at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.   

The Sunday Read: Backstage at Semele

Quiet On The Set...and...Remember!

Backstage at the COC brings the past and the biggest question facing opera

by Alex Van Chee

(photos by Karl Forster from the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie production of Semele, 2009) 

So there I was standing in the backstage of the Four Seasons Centre for Performing Arts amongst a frenzy of camera crew, reporters, and other media writers like a fish out of water on a Friday afternoon, wondering what to do. It was Canadian Opera Company’s media meet and greet event for the upcoming big budget production of Handel’s Semele and everybody was excited. There were speeches about the history and the mechanics of the very impressive “set” (a real 500 hundred-year old Ming temple made of camphor wood, dismantled and put back together here in Toronto), about the multiculturalism and its significance both to the opera and the city of Toronto, about the impossible task of running 3 different operas simultaneously, each with its own sets. Having never been at an event quite like this before, I was suddenly at a loss: I didn’t know what I was doing there. I didn’t have a clear agenda (I knew I had to write something after the trip), I am an introvert (my friends would protest violently on this) so speaking to strangers in an event like this was quite frightening, and I was ill prepared for any one-on-one interviews (I didn’t know this was part of, or even the point of a media event). I must have sweat buckets because the media kit prepared for me that I clutched tightly in my hands was wrinkled and damp.