Gianmarco Segato

Advertisement / Publicité It’s been 34 years since the Canadian Opera Company last presented Massenet’s Werther. While perhaps not in the top 10 of most–produced operas, it isn’t so much on the fringes to merit being out of the company’s repertoire for so long. A new production directed by Alain Gauthier opened on May 7, and immediately distinguished itself from the company’s other recent confused, ‘radical’ rethinkings of French 19th-century masterpieces, Faust and Roméo et Juliette.

Advertisement / Publicité Toronto Operetta Theatre closed their season with Johann Strauss’s 1883 operetta A Night in Venice. Set in Venice during carnival season, it revolves around plot devices that might be considered questionable today. These include a nobleman’s ‘right’ to deflower young women, and what must have been some hilarious cross-dressing at the time…all handled with taste and not too much unnecessary fanfare here.

Advertisement / Publicité It’s no secret that Opera Atelier has wanted to present Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande for many decades, and finally, the results were unveiled last week at Toronto’s Koerner Hall to close the company’s spring season (seen Apr. 18). A “period” Pelléas is an intriguing prospect and in many ways, this was one of the group’s more memorable productions in recent seasons.