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Gala Concert
14 June 2006
Inauguration of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto
Richard Bradshaw (conductor)
Gerald Finley
Ben Heppner
Aline Kutan
Allyson McHardy
Adrianne Pieczonka
Brett Polegato
Robert Pomakov
The Canadian Opera Company
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Click here to hear a recording of Gerald Finley and Adrianne Pieczonka in the final scene of Eugene Onegin from this concert
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What the critics say
Opera, August 2006
Toronto's gala opening
The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, Canada's first purpose-built opera house, was inaugurated on June 14 with a gala concert featuring Canadian singers including Ben Heppner, Adrianne Pieczonka and Gerald Finley under the baton of the Canadian Opera Company's General Director, Richard Bradshaw. The Toronto Star described the sound in the main R. Fraser Elliott Hall as 'acoustically pitch-perfect', and the Toronto Sun reported that the audience was 'rewarded not only by quality sound and picture but by a ... curtain call made under a banner that finally said it all: "The Canadian Opera Company - Home At Last".' At the end of the concert, said the Globe and Mail, Bradshaw 'took the stage for a huge ovation, in a house that owes more to him than to anyone'.
Guests at the gala dinner welcomed a surprise announcement by the COC's Chairman that the Aerial Amphitheatre - a performance space that will be used for free lunchtime and early evening concerts, and preperformance talks, all designed to draw the public in-would be named in honour of Bradshaw, as the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. 'I cannot tell you what this means to me,' said Bradshaw. 'Of course, I wanted a hall with the best possible acoustics and sightlines, and we've got that, but I also wanted an opera house that was as open and public as it could be, and, in so many ways, we have that too. However, the Aerial Amphitheatre is really where the public-anyone who wants to walk in the building-can come and enjoy music and performance, all kinds, without a cost.'
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After a three-decade-long quest for an opera house, the Canadian Opera Company finally has a home to call its own. On June 14, the Four Seasons Centre For The Performing Arts opened its doors with a glittering gala concert. Simulcast on a huge screen in Nathan Phillips Square, it attracted an audience of several thousand. The aesthetics of the Centre are best described as quintessentially Canadian-a triumph of substance and function over glamour and glitz. This is no Rococo theatre to be sure, or one that speaks to wealth and excess. What we do have is a visually pleasing, audience-friendly space with clean lines, soothing colours and neutral decor, combined to achieve a certain understated elegance. Most of all, it is a house that serves the music. From the beginning the goal was to build a hall with good sightlines and first-rate sound. While the acoustics cannot be definitively assessed until the Ring in September, early indications are more than encouraging.
The concert itself was relatively short, with thankfully no speeches and 80 minutes of superlative music-making by some of Canada's best singers. It made up for the conspicuous absence of Canadian music, save for '0 Canada', which the COC Chorus sang lustily. Particularly memorable were Ben Heppner's 'Ourch die Wiilder' from Der Freischiitz and Adrianne Pieczonka's suitably ecstatic 'Oich, teure Halle' from Tannhiiuser. All too rarely heard locally, Brett Polegato offered an uncommonly fine 'Largoal factotum'. Special mention must be made of the soprano Aline Kutan, making her belated COC mainstage debut. She combined a lovely, crystalline yet powerful sound with exemplary coloratura, and when she threw in an unexpected, long-held high Fin 'Oer Holle Rache', the audience let out a collective gasp. Top vocal honours of the evening belonged to Gerald Finley and Pieczonka in the final scene of Yevgeny Onegin. Without the benefit of sets and costumes, they raised the temperature to red hot in their searing confrontation.
If there were opening jitters from the participants on June 14, everything went without a hitch two nights later. The jubilant Richard Bradshaw drew impressive sounds from the pit, where the musicians were undoubtedly luxuriating in the extra, newfound elbow room. Bring on the Ring!
John Coulbourn, Toronto Sun, June 15, 2006.
www.torontosun.com
Toronto toasts new opera house. Fans gather for gala opening concert
If it’s true, as some romantics suggest, that the walls of the world’s great opera palaces are seasoned by the beautiful sounds in which they are steeped, then one thing is sure.
The gilding of the walls of Toronto’s spanking new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts began in joyful earnest last night (June 14, 2006) as the Canadian Opera Company welcomed its first official audience for the Centre’s Inaugural Gala Concert.
With the 2,000 seat hall filled seemingly to capacity by a glittering crowd that included Governor General Michaelle Jean, film maker Atom Egoyan, rocker Steven Page, author Margaret Atwood and a host of others, COC Director General Richard Bradshaw earned the first standing ovation of the evening by simply picking up the baton to conduct his orchestra through the 90 minute program. He brought the same crowd to its feet at the end of the concert as well.
What separated the two ovations was a program that included some of opera’s greatest, not to mention, best known moments, served up by some of Canada’s brightest opera lights and backed at every turn by the impressive talents of the COC Chorus and Orchestra. It was a program designed to showcase the riches the COC will bring to their new home.
After a rousing, bilingual rendition of O Canada by the COC Chorus, tenor Ben Heppner, sopranos Adrianne Pieczonka and Aline Kutan, mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy, baritone Brett Polegato and bass-baritone Gerald Finley romped through a repertoire that included works by Wagner, Delibes, Bellini, Verdi, Rossini, Mozart, Von Weber, Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky and others.
And just when you thought you’d heard it all -- Heppner’s rendition of Durch di Walder from Der Freischutz, Polegato’s of Largo al factotum from Il barbiere di Siviglia, Kutan and McHardy teamed in Dome epais from Lakme, Kutan in Der Holle Rache from The Magic Flute and Finley in Fin ch’han dal vino from Don Giovanni -- Bradshaw pulled out all the stops, ending on not one, but two, glorious notes. The first, a teaming of Pieczonka and Finley in the final scene of Eugene Onegin, was enough to send shivers up one’s spine, steeped as it was in the promise of the great operas to come. The second, the COC Chorus in a stirring rendition of Beethoven’s Ode To Joy, served as the perfect note to end an evening that had been filled with it.
Then, while many in the crowd lingered for a gala dinner centre stage in the R. Fraser Elliott Hall, others took the stroll across Queen St. to join a crowd of about 2,000, assembled to enjoy a delayed simulcast on Nathan Phillips Square, introduced by Mayor David Miller and hosted by David Gale.
Undeterred by a light rain that did little to mar an otherwise perfect evening, the crowd was rewarded not only by quality sound and picture but by a live curtain call made by Bradshaw and his stable of talent -- a curtain call made under a banner that said finally said it all:
Martin Knelman, The Toronto Star, June 15, 2006.
www.thestar.com
Centre opens on a high note
Last night’s (June 14, 2006) long-awaited gala opening concert at Toronto’s new opera house was the cultural equivalent of the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup in overtime or the Blue Jays winning the World Series with a bases-loaded home run in the bottom of the ninth.
It was a grand night for singing at the acoustically pitch-perfect Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, but this glittering occasion represented much more than that -- marking the end of frustrating delays that went on for a quarter-century. “This is just so exciting now that we’re finally here,” said author Margaret Atwood as she stepped from the red carpet into the $150-million building.
Since the early 1980s, a lot of funny and not-so-funny things have happened on the way to an opera house. For years, Toronto was known around the world as the city that could not get an opera house built. But on this clear, warm June evening, the agony ended and the ecstasy began. “This represents a belated flowering of the city,” said Citytv co-founder Moses Znaimer, another guest at last night’s gala. “People have finally figured out what money is for: You make it and you spend it on culture.”
“I can’t believe there’s anyone in this city who doesn’t embrace this place,” said Isadore Sharp, whose Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts company paid $20 million for naming rights to the new house.
The cliché from the opera world is that it isn’t over until the fat lady sings. But last night’s event wasn’t over until maestro Richard Bradshaw -- the relentless Canadian Opera Company general manager, who crusaded for an opera house against daunting odds -- raised his baton for the COC’s stirring encore of the finale from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
There were no speeches and no intermission. During the ovations from the 2,000 first-nighters, one of the heroes of the occasion, architect Jack Diamond, looked on from his box. Earlier in the evening, Diamond said, “Tonight you see everybody in black tie, but the great thing is that from now on, all kinds of people are going to be here in jeans.” He was less enthused when, arriving early, he saw flower arrangements all over the place, at the elegant beechwood screen separating the all-glass City Room from the auditorium. “Oh my God, it looks like a funeral parlour,” Diamond declared. The flowers were quickly moved to a discreet corner.
Among those who sang during the 90-minute concert was tenor Ben Heppner, a Torontoresident in demand at every major opera house around the world, who sang an aria from Weber’s Der Freischutz. Other performers included Adrianne Pieczonka, Aline Kutan, Allyson McHardy, Brett Polegato, Gerald Finely [sic] and Robert Pomakov. The program included selections from operas by Mozart, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Bellini.
Immediately after the concert, Bradshaw and the singers sprinted from the opera house at Queen St. and University Ave. to Nathan Phillips Square, where another audience was watching for free on huge video screens. A seven-minute delay in the video feed made it possible for the performers to arrive at city hall as the concert was ending.
Among the 500 VIP guests who attended not only the concert but a post-concert onstage dinner was a veteran of what Bradshaw has dubbed Toronto’s 30-year war to get an opera house. That would be Hal Jackman, former lieutenant-governor of Ontario, who lost more than $1 million of his own money when an earlier proposed opera house, designed by Moshe Safdie, was cancelled in 1990. Undeterred, Jackman has donated $5 million to the opera house that finally was built. In his honour, the patrons’ lounge bears his name. Before the concert, the Governor General Michaëlle Jean -- accompanied by her husband Jean-Daniel Lafond -- caused a buzz on the red carpet.
Other notables glimpsed by the crowd included Atwood; federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and his wife, Ontario MPP Christine Elliott; Ontario cabinet minister David Caplan; and embattled tycoon Conrad Black with wife Barbara Amiel. Sharp led the parade of donors, accompanied by wife Rosalie Wise Sharp. At the post-performance dinner -- featuring cuisine by Mark McEwan (of North 44 and Bymark) -- the city’s elite dined onstage in a milieu created by award-winning set designer Susan Benson and lighting designer Michael Whitfield. Tables were draped with hand-dyed silk tablecloths and lit with long tapering candles.
As everyone present seemed acutely aware, the opening of Canada’s first purpose-built opera house was truly a night for triumphal arias and champagne toasts.
Robert Everett-Green, The Globe and Mail, June 15, 2006.
www.globeandmail.com
Doors open on new era for Toronto opera scene
The stock markets are all a-flutter this week, but if you put money in the Canadian Opera Company’s new theatre, you can relax: you made a good investment. The Four Seasons Centre has been a dream for at least 30 years, and a construction site since 2003.
Luminaries from the stage to the boardroom and the legislature graced the red carpet. Among those in attendance were Governor-General Michaëlle Jean, Isadore Sharp, president and founder of the Four Seasons hotel chain, CITY-TV founder Moses Znaimer, Bank of Montreal CEO Tony Comper, and Conrad Black and wife Barbara Amiel Black.
Authors Margaret Atwood and Margaret MacMillan and philanthropists Henry N. R. Jackman and Barbara and Patrick Keenan were among the 500 donors and guests who later wined and dined on stage in the R. Fraser Elliott Hall during the evening of celebration.
It was a sparkling event, and a peculiar one. The Four Seasons was designed for opera and ballet and nothing else. The musical part of last night’s gala event was a concert, with no sets or costumes and very little physical drama. Soloists marched to the front of the stage and delivered their arias.
We might have been at the opening of a new concert hall, but for the fact that the orchestra was sitting in a hole in the floor. But even with these limitations, the hall sounded like a winner. It’s got a very attractive resonance, flattering to all parts of the orchestra and especially to voices on stage. The sound is warm and a bit contained, but without dryness. It is clear enough to expose every section of the orchestra (a challenging asset), and to give maximum transparency to sung or spoken text. I was in the fourth row, too close to know how things sounded in the remotest parts of the hall. But I sat in the third ring during a test concert last month, and from both seats the voices rang clear and the orchestra sounded as if every player had been given a better instrument.
The program included some of opera’s greatest hits in four languages. Tenor Ben Heppner made the hall ring with the final section of Durch die Walder, from Weber’s Der Freischutz. Baritone Gerald Finley tossed off Don Giovanni’s Fin ch’han dal vino like the frisky party piece it is, and baritone Brett Polegato nearly stole the show with a strong and characterful performance of Figaro’s cocky Largo al factotum, from Rossini’s Barber of Seville.
Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka was the first to greet the hall, literally, with a gleaming performance of Wagner’s Dich, teure Halle, from Tannhauser. Late in the show, she and Mr. Finley played the turbulent final scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, in full character if not in costume. This gave us, at last, a thrilling taste of what this hall is for, in a dramatic performance by two of Canada’s greatest singers.
The pit stayed at its lowest position all night, which was good for Wagner, not so great for Mozart, Rossini and Delibes (represented by the inevitable duet from Lakmé, sung by Aline Kutan and Allyson McHardy). The COC will probably never play those composers from such a murky depth again.
The orchestra played alone twice, in a courtly excerpt from Richard Strauss’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and in the Act III Prelude from Wagner’s Lohengrin, which hinted at the power and delicacy of sound available from the hall’s enormous pit.
The COC Chorus sang in several numbers, impressing with its power and unified sound. The concert ended with the final pages of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, a piece famously performed by Wagner when the foundation stone for his opera house at Bayreuth was laid in 1872. At the close, our own Richard took the stage for a huge ovation, in a house that owes more to him than to anyone.