Opera.ca News
Opera.ca and the Banff Centre look forward to hosting over 35 delegates for the fourth bi-annual Banff Opera Colloquium, August 19-21, 2011.
The Banff Opera Colloquium is a professional development weekend for members by invitation only. The colloquium will bring together opera general directors, income and outreach managers, and board members who are interested in affecting change for their companies and forming a practical response to the social, economic, and technological challenges that face us all. The colloquium will provide a framework or lens through which to view issues and challenges and introduce concepts such as Complexity, the Adaptive Cycle, and Resilience, and deliver ways to integrate these concepts for organizational and sectoral change.
Confirmed speakers for the Banff Opera Colloquium are Marc Scorca, President and CEO of OPERA America and Mark Robinson who will be making his first North American keynote presentation Making Adaptive Resilience Real. Using a theory of systems and organizational change, (the Adaptive Cycle), Mark Robinson defines eight surprisingly practical characteristics of resilient arts organizations that we will use to measure our resilience organizationally and sectorally. Later that day, Marc Scorca will challenge us to examine the individual or personal qualities in ourselves for leading organizational change.
The colloquium will also feature a session for Board members of opera companies only, a special Trustee Breakfast facilitated by Marc Scorca.
We have set up the following hashtag for tweeters to follow: #BOC2011.
For more information on the Colloquium, visit our website.
OPERA America News
Update on the Opera Center
Members from across the country and around the world travel to New York to conduct auditions and participate in a wide range of meetings. Despite this concentration of talent, no appropriate facility exists in which to conduct essential industry business. In February 2011, OPERA America signed a lease for the space that will become the Opera Center. To increase the level of creativity, excellence and effectiveness in opera, OPERA America’s National Opera Center will provide unique and necessary services never before available in a single, purpose-built facility.
The Opera Center will occupy 25,000 square feet on two floors in the same building that houses OPERA America’s current offices. It will feature an acoustically excellent audition/recital hall, a media centre, library, learning centre and much more. To find out more about the Opera Center, please see here.
Focus on Canadian Opera Creation
The deadlines for this year’s Canadian Opera Creation Fund Program have been announced. They are:
Letter of Intent – August 29, 2011
Full application deadline: October 3, 2011
This year, applications will be accepted in the categories of Exploration/Partnership, Development and Production. To download guidelines and applications, please visit: www.opera.ca.
As always, we are looking to put together a great panel. We welcome your input for potential panelists for the COCF. Please send suggestions to Christina Loewen: c_loewen@opera.ca.
This will be the final year of COCF funding, an enormously successful ten-year initiative that supported the development of nearly 100 new opera creations.
Member News
Opera Atelier has announced that it will bring its production of Don Giovanni to Opera Columbus this fall. In support of this production, the company announced that it has received the largest gift in its history - $200,000 from Michael A. Wekerle.
Be sure to check out this profile on Glimmerglass’ new Director Francesca Zambello to read more about Opera Atelier’s upcoming engagement at the Festival. Opera Atelier will bring Lully’s Armide to Glimmerglass in 2012.
The first Festival d’opéra de Québec took place from July 25 to August 6 and included such performances as Stravinsky’s The Nightingale and Other Short Fables, staged by Robert Lepage and presented in Québec for the first time, Peter Brook’s special arrangement of Mozart’s Magic Flute and Music in the Open / Opera Outdoors, a series of summer concerts, presented in collaboration with the City of Québec. For more information: www.festivaloperaquebec.com.
Vancouver Opera has received a generous gift of $1-million from Michael and Inna O’Brian to support renovations and adaptations to their new facility. The gift will be recognized with the naming of the new premises as The Michael & Inna O’Brian Centre for Vancouver Opera. In the new facility, which is now open, administrative offices, costume and properties shops, set storage, and staging and orchestra rehearsals will all take place under one roof.
At Manitoba Opera’s Annual General Meeting held on July 13, 2011, it was announced that despite a critically acclaimed season, the company posted an operating deficit of $100,596 on a budget of $1,850,630 for the year ending May 31, 2011. This is the first unplanned operating deficit for the company in 11 seasons and is the result of ticket sales not meeting budget for the 2010/11 season. For more information, see the release.
In other Manitoba Opera news, the company has announced that comedian Mary Walsh will join the cast of The Daughter of the Regiment in the speaking role of The Duchess of Krakenthorp.
People
Edmonton Opera has announced the resignation of long-time Artistic Director, Brian Deedrick.
Jane Heffelfinger, founder of Pacific Opera Victoria and a leading figure in Victoria's arts scene, passed away on June 22, 2011.
Of Note
The Cultural Human Resources Council (CHRC) learned on July 7, 2011 that Human Resources and Skills Development Canada will be "phasing out core funding and some elements of project funding to sector councils in the period leading up to March 31, 2013."
CHRC Board of Directors and staff are actively working on the development of a Legacy Strategy to ensure that the wealth of studies, products and learning tools developed by CHRC since its inception in 1995 continues to be used after March 2013 for the benefit of Canadian cultural workers and employers.
Opera Piccola will present their inaugural concert on August 25 and 27. Opera Piccola’s singers will be accompanied by the Ensemble QAT in excerpts from popular operas and operettas.