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I’ve just completed two days of exhausting, thrilling rehearsals with the cast for Tafelmusik’s production of Handel’s Hercules. I began rehearsals with a great deal of trepidation. The only singer I had ever worked with extensively is the marvelous soprano Nathalie Paulin, who sings the role of the captive princess Iole. Given the time constraints [...]

I don’t know if we have ever had a busier summer at Opera Atelier than the one which is now drawing to a close. We have managed to squeeze in our Armide Singer Workshop, a trip to the Glimmerglass Festival, the Salzburg Festival, a very busy summer school for the School of Atelier Ballet culminating [...]

On the evening of June 11, we arrived at New York City Ballet’s theatre (now called the David H. Koch Theater) for a triple bill, which always represents some very exciting programming with this company. We were expecting to see Balachine’s Donizetti Variations, Christopher Wheeldon’s Mercurial Manoeuvers, and Peter Martins’ Thou Swell, however, the evening [...]

Jeannette and I never make a trip to New York without taking in at least one performance by New York City Ballet. I have no hesitation in calling NYCB the greatest ballet company in the world – a company that changed the world’s perception of ballet in the 20st century and which continues to have [...]

Wednesday morning I was stopped in my tracks by an astonishing photograph of Argo “kicker” Justin Medlock. I don’t know anything about football, but I know a great deal about ballet and that young man has the legs, feet and even the flexibility, of a ballet star! Sadly, it is too late for Mr. Medlock [...]

I’m sitting in the house of the Elgin – the most beautiful theatre in Canada. Every time I step into this theatre it takes my breath away. When guest conductor Marc Minkowski first worked with Opera Atelier he was completely unprepared to encounter a theatre this gorgeous outside of Paris. The first time he stepped [...]

I wanted to let the friends of Opera Atelier know that last month the Chair of our Board, Alberta Cefis was invited to attend an Opera America Trustee event in New York City at which she was honoured with the 2009/10 National Opera Directors Recognition Award, sponsored by BMO Financial Group. This distinction honours one [...]

As a director, it is naturally a pleasure for me to see a production fully realized and on the stage – but even this can’t begin to match the thrill of rehearsal. Watching artists give shape to one’s ideas is more gratifying than I can possibly express. Sometimes what has been nothing more than an [...]