City Opera Vancouver will present “Sophia’s Forest” by Lembit Beecher and librettist Hannah Moscovitch this May and June at Studio T at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. The opera tells the story of Sophia, who flees civil war and settles in a new country. The work stars Elena Howard-Scott as adult Sophia with Arya Yazgan as the young Sophia. {…}
City Opera Vancouver is set to present “The Hafu Project.” The work was created by Nikkei-Canadian baritone Luka Kawabata and pianist Perri Lo, who will perform the project on May 25 and 26. “The Hafu Project” was created in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown as part of the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity’s “Opera in the 21st Century” initiative. {…}
City Opera Vancouver will present a recital “Towards Home: An Evening of Songs,” featuring soprano Simone Osborne and bass-baritone Gordon Binter on Oct. 27, 2023. The duo will perform alongside Artistic Director Gordon Gerrard in a program featuring music by Schubert, Finzi, and Viardot, among others. Osborne is set to make her Calgary Opera debut in 2023-24 and will also {…}
City Opera Vancouver has unveiled a slate of free summer concerts. The Friday performances will take place at Sun Yat-Sen Courtyard in Chinatown while Saturday shows will be featured at the Milton Wong Plaza in Olympic Village. Finally, the Sunday concerts will take place at The Roundhouse Turntable in Yaletown. The first concert is “Ukrainochka,” dedicated to the music of {…}
Gordon Gerrard has been named the new Artistic Director of City Opera Vancouver (City Opera) by its Board of Directors. He will take over for Dr. Charles Barber, the organization’s Artistic Founder, who retired in January. Gerrard, the current Music Director of Regina Symphony Orchestra, will assume his role in September 2023, following a six-month delay due to intensive community-level {…}
On May 18, 2023, City Opera Vancouver will present the city premiere of Isaiah Bell and Sean Guist’s “The Book of My Shames.” This one-man performance, starring tenor Isaiah Bell, will follow a youth as he’s driven by longing from a fundamentalist commune into a world of danger and success. It will combine personal stories with original music, chansons, and {…}
City Opera Vancouver is set to premiere “Chinatown” on September 13-17, 2022 at the Vancouver Playhouse. The opera by librettist Madeleine Thien and composer Alice Ping Yee Ho, while a Western opera, will employ traditional Chinese themes and sounds. Opening at a time of anti-Asian racism, the opera represents a struggle to preserve Chinatown and the need to tell the {…}
City Opera Vancouver has announced a new award in honor of Rose-Ellen Nichols, a Canadian Coast Salish mezzo-soprano who died of cancer in February 2022. The award will recognize one promising Canadian artist aged 18-40 pursuing a career and/or education in voice or costume design. Each year, the award will alternate between the two areas, with this year’s given for {…}
The City Opera Vancouver has postponed an upcoming production. The company announced that due to COVID-19 it was postponing the premiere of “Chinatown,” by the composer Alice Ping Yee Ho and librettist Madeleine Thien, from September 2021 to September 2022. In a statement, the company said “Chinatown” is planned for its world premiere in September 2022, at the 668-seat Vancouver {…}
(Credit: Chris Randle / City Opera Vancouver) On March 26, City Opera Vancouver released the comic cantata “Perruqueries” on the company’s YouTube channel. Composed by Jocelyn Morlock to Bill Richardson’s libretto, the video work explores wigs and the people who wear them. Viewing is free. Storied wig-wearers Bobby Hull, Andy Warhol, and Galina Vishnevskaya, among others, get combed over in {…}