Telling people I love opera often results in curious, funny looks – then again, if you’ve never been to the opera, you might be one of those people giving me a funny look. For some reason, people think the adoration of opera is a pretention: that opera is snobby, elitist and aristocratic, and those who claim to enjoy it are just trying to seem cool. For those of you who’ve never been, operas are beautiful and exciting and dramatic – they’re essentially the soap operas of the classical music world. And here in Ottawa, we are lucky enough to have our very own opera company.
Ottawa was once home to world-renowned opera. The NAC’s in-house opera company drew international attention; some of opera’s greatest set and costume designers worked on productions for the NAC. Opera Lyra Ottawa (OLO) was started in 1984 by Canadian soprano Diana Gilchrist after budget cuts to the NAC threatened to drive opera from the Capital forever. OLO began as a community based company – their first production, Mozart’s “The Impressario,” was at the York Street Theatre in the Market. From these humble beginnings, a truly Canadian opera company was born. OLO has showcased the talent of many notable Canadian artists (Louis Quilico, Wendy Neilsen and Russell Braun to name a few, for any opera geeks reading) and performing with OLO is considered a great opportunity for up and coming artists to try out some of opera’s great roles for the first time.
There have been many extremely talented artistic directors for Opera Lyra (Diana Gilchrist occupied the position for the company’s first four years) but when Tyrone Paterson took over as OLO’s Artistic Director in 1999, he founded The Young Artists Training Programme, one of the few Canadian based training programs designed to help young professionals at the beginning of their operatic careers. OLO is also passionate about giving kids the chance to fall in love with opera. They offer a variety of programs to introduce children and youths to the opera, including special, student only, performances and teacher’s resources.
Opera Lyra puts on two productions a year, one in the autumn and one in the spring. La Boheme was back in September, and opera fans are excited for La Traviata, opening March 21. La Traviata is a story of whorish behavior, true love found and then lost, and found again. Heartache, betrayal, extremely rude behavior, a duel and a tragic death… Have I already mentioned opera’s similarities to soap operas? The names aren’t analogous by coincidence. It’s the tale of Violetta, a party girl courtesan, who falls for a sweet guy named Alfredo – even though she’s dating a baron at the time – settles down with him and then sends him away to protect the family’s reputation. She goes back to her party girl ways and he gets kind of douchy… It’s an archetypal story that remains relevant, even today. The ending isn’t terribly happy (so few truly are) but the story is beautiful.
For those of you who already love and appreciate the opera, there will be two performances of La Traviata, Thursday, March 21 and Saturday, March 23. Make an evening of it; dress up, take your significant other out for a nice dinner and a night at the opera. For those of you who’ve never been, all I can say is, try it. You might like it. Student Rush applies for opera tickets, so if you’re looking for something new to do, give it a shot. If you’re anything like me, you’ll fall in love. If not, at least you’ll be able to tell people you’ve been to the opera… It’s an experience everyone should have at least once.
