Canadian Opera Company Opens New Season with LA TRAVIATA Tonight

Toronto - The Canadian Opera Company opens its 2015/2016 season with a work of dazzling beauty, Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. This operatic classic returns to the COC stage in a lush new production for 11 performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts tonight, October 8, and Octoer 13, 16, 17, 21, 24, 29, 30, November 1, 4, 6, 2015.

La Traviata is one of opera's greatest romances but it scandalized Venetians at its 1853 premiere with its unsentimental depiction of a Parisian courtesan in love. A year later, La Traviata was restaged and triumphed, quickly growing in popularity. It remains one of the most performed operas in the world.

Renowned New York theatre director Arin Arbus, hailed by the New York Times in 2009 as "the most gifted new director to emerge," sets Verdi's story of passion and sacrifice in glittering 1850s Paris, evoking the social realities, rhythms and debauchery of a rapidly changing world. Co-produced with Lyric Opera of Chicago and Houston Grand Opera, this La Traviata delighted audiences at its Chicago premiere in 2013 with a look and feel that is "both hyper-traditional and, in moments, saucily modern" (bachtrack.com).

Arbus's creation balances the intimacy of Verdi's delicate love story with the playfulness and decadence of the 19th-century Parisian nightlife that inspired the opera that Verdi called "a subject of the times." The lavish costumes are by noted visual artist and designer Cait O'Connor, set against the uncluttered backdrop of set designer Riccardo Hernandezwith atmospheric lighting by Marcus Doshi and choreography by Austin McCormick. Projection designs are by Christopher Ash.

Irresistible melodies and elegant harmonies make the score of La Traviata one of Verdi's most emotional operas. Leading the COC Orchestra and Chorus through this musical masterpiece is internationally renowned Italian conductor Marco Guidarini, last with the COC for 2012's Il Trovatore.

La Traviata's doomed courtesan, Violetta, has emerged over time as one of the most compelling and glamorous heroines in all of opera. Russian Ekaterina Siurina, one of the leading singers of her generation and as celebrated for her sparkling soprano as her charming stage presence, makes her Canadian and role debut in a part known for its demanding vocal pyrotechnics and complex character arc. She shares this beloved role with equally lauded Canadian soprano Joyce El-Khoury, one of today's leading Violettas, last heard at the COC in La Bohème in 2013.

In the role of Violetta's nobleman lover, Alfredo, is one of the finest lyric tenors of his generation, internationally acclaimed American Charles Castronovo in his Canadian debut. He shares the role with "the powerful and nimble voice" (Opera News) of COC Ensemble Studio tenor Andrew Haji. As Germont, Alfredo's disapproving father, is "incomparable" American baritone Quinn Kelsey, as proclaimed by The Guardian. Kelsey mesmerized COC audiences and critics in 2014's Don Quichotte and 2011's Rigoletto, and now brings his "strong, musical voice... [to make] a formidable Germont" (New York Times). Canadian baritone James Westman, last with the COC in 2012's Die Fledermaus, brings his "dramatic range and superb vocal control... [and] keen sense of theatric expression" (Opera News) to the role of Germont for three performances. Westman also sings Baron Douphol, Alfredo's rival, for the other eight shows in La Traviata's scheduled run.

South African-Canadian mezzo-soprano and Ensemble Studio alumna Lauren Segal, "alluring, sexy, her voice rich in nuance" (Opera Magazine), returns to the COC as Violetta's friend, Flora. Canadian bass-baritone Thomas Goerz sings Baron Douphol for three performances and Ensemble Studio alumni bass Robert Gleadow and bass-baritone Neil Craighead share the role of Dr. Grenvil. Rounding out the cast are current members of the company's Ensemble Studio: bass-baritone Iain MacNeil is the Marquis d'Obigny; tenor Charles Sy is Alfredo's friend, Gastone; soprano Karine Boucher is Violetta's maid, Annina; and tenor Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure is Violetta's servant, Giuseppe. Baritone Jan Vaculik is a Messenger.

La Traviata is based on the French play La dame aux Camélias (1852) by Alexandre Dumas fils, which the author adapted for the stage from his own best-selling novel of the same name. Dumas had fallen in love with a famous Parisian courtesan named Marie Duplessis, who served as the model for the tragic heroine of Dumas' novel and subsequently Verdi's opera.

Dumas' play attracted Verdi's attention because it offered a new and invigorating Realism. In this story, morality did not necessarily triumph; the scale was intimate and personal by focusing on people's private lives; and the characters and situations were recognizably contemporary, speaking to all manner of issues that were relevant to, and vigorously debated by, the public in mid-1800s Europe. Verdi originally set his opera in contemporary times, something rarely done, but he ran afoul of censors and theatre managers who demanded that the time period of La Traviata be pushed into the distant past to dilute the work's shocking social critique.

La Traviata is sung in Italian with English SURTITLESTM, and was last performed by the COC in 2007.

TICKET INFORMATION
Single tickets for La Traviata range from $50 - $435 and are available online at coc.ca, by calling 416-363-8231, or in person at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts Box Office (145 Queen St. W.). For more information on specially priced ticketsavailable to young people under the age of 15, standing room, Opera Under 30presented by TD Bank Group, student groups and rush seating, visit coc.ca.

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