Pacific Opera Returns To Victoria's Royal Theatre With New Season

Pacific Opera Victoria brings opera back to the Royal Theatre with musically exquisite performances that cross the boundary of stage and screen. The company's long-awaited productions of Carmen and Don Giovanni, originally scheduled in 2020 and 2021, are complemented by The Garden of Alice and For A Look Or A Touch, operas produced and filmed by Pacific Opera Victoria while live theatres were closed. Both live and screened operas are to be enjoyed in person at the Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton Street, Victoria. Evening performances begin at 7:30pm with matinee performances at 2:30pm. Pre-show Lobby presentations will be replaced with programming available online.

"We are all feeling the surge and renewal of excitement as we prepare for a return to the theatre", declares Pacific Opera Artistic Director, Timothy Vernon. "In opera, live performance is our ultimate goal and nothing can supplant that -- technology is terrific but no substitute. Live is real."

Pacific Opera CEO Ian Rye agrees. "We have missed bringing community together to see and to perform and to engage in this wonderful art form. So much relies on action in a real setting."

On stage

Pacific Opera launches the season with a return to an eternally popular work, Bizet's Carmen. Musically brilliant and a perfect opera for newcomers, Carmen runs February 23 through March 1, 2022. "This will be the company's 5th Carmen", says Vernon. "It is always exciting, and this production will be vital, dramatic, and wholly original". French mezzo-soprano Aude Extrémo makes her company debut in the title role with Canadian tenor Adam Luther as Don José and soprano Lauren Margison as Micaela. The production is directed by Brenna Corner and designed by Olivier Landreville (set) and Sylvain Genois (costumes).

Don Giovanni, presented April 20 through 26, is 230-year-old proof that the need for the #MeToo movement is nothing new, and that opera can be both dazzling and relevant to our time. The libertine with a catalogue of conquests has been around forever, and women have long been speaking up and demanding justice. A psychological masterpiece and arresting mix of comedy, melodrama, and tragedy, Mozart's Don Giovanni has quite rightly been called the opera of all operas. Maria Lamont returns to Victoria to direct. American baritone Lucia Lucas makes a Canadian debut in the title role, joined by Canadian soprano Aviva Fortunata as Donna Anna and Canadian tenor Owen McCausland as Don Ottavio.

Pacific Opera Artistic Director Timothy Vernon conducts the Victoria Symphony for both productions. Pacific Opera Associate Conductor and Chorus Master Giuseppe Pietraroia directs the Pacific Opera Chorus.

On screen

On Feb 24 and 26, 2022, audiences are invited to return to the magical world of Wonderland. Elizabeth Raum's The Garden of Alice, reimagined by the Canadian composer in collaboration with conductor Timothy Vernon and director Glynis Leyshon, shifts Lewis Carroll's famous tale to a new perspective as an indie film. Sing-able melodies lead audiences of all ages through absurd encounters featuring their favourite characters.

Starring Canadian soprano Tracy Dahl, The Garden of Alice is an aesthetically eye-popping film that looks well beyond childhood and fully at life, from both sides of the looking glass.

On April 21 and 23, 2022, Pacific Opera presents For A Look Or A Touch, Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's moving and tuneful opera based on true stories of gay men whose love and lives were torn apart in Nazi Germany. For A Look Or A Touch is a theatrical song cycle, with elements of jazz and swing and a score that captures the spirit of complicated human relationships. Starring Andrew Love and C. David Johnson, For A Look Or A Touch is directed for film by Michael Shamata, with Maestro Timothy Vernon conducting.

All stage and screen productions are presented at Victoria's Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton Street.

For more info and for season or individual tickets, visit www.pacificopera.ca or call 250-385-0222.