JANUARY 2016 ISSUE NO. 70

Opera Valentine 2016

Five-Course Italian Gourmet Dinner

Serenades Silent Auction

Songs of Love

Guest Artists

Maureen Batt, soprano Paula Rockwell, mezzo-soprano

Leander Mendoza, tenor Ross Thompson, bass-baritone

Matthew McGreer, baritone Tara Scott, piano

Friday, February 12

6:00 for 6:30 p.m.

The Italian-Canadian Cultural Association Club 2629 Agricola St., Halifax

Tickets $85.00 incl. $25.00 tax receipt By reservation only, call Sheila at 902 445-5768

Opera Valentine Plans Up and Running

Friday February 12 is only four weeks away, and the chef, the vocal artists, and the production, advertising and Silent Auction teams are in full-scale preparation mode to ensure you the warmest and most wonderful Opera Valentine that they possibly can. No other performing arts event in HRM offers such epicurean enticement, vocal variety, and festive fun, and at such a reasonable registration price: Opera Valentine continues to be a premiere fixture in the Arts and Entertainment social calendar in HRM. A special food note. Remember that this year for the Main Course Chef Lanfranco Nardi is offering guests a choice between pork or chicken medallions. As always a vegetarian meal is available if you so request. Please communicate with Sheila (445-5768) as to your selection and any other dietary needs. Five Singers guarantee vocal pleasure. Maureen Batt pursues one of the busiest of event schedules, actively engaged between Halifax and Toronto. The New Brunswick born soprano maintains not only her stage and recital career but produces the season of Essential Opera, of which she is co-founder and administrator. For the ONS Spring Production 2015 she pleased our audiences in the title role of Aunt Helen (Helen Creighton) and captivated them by her flair as a comedienne in La Serva Padrona. This Fall her

histrionic talents drove the workshop reading of a new chamber opera by Elizabeth Raum with Maritime Concert Opera, based on the constructive contribution to Nova Scotia of the Sisters of Charity. Paula Rockwell, Opera Valentine Music Director and Host, is recognized as one of Eastern Canada’s most popular personalities in vocal performance, pedagogy and adjudication. She has lent to ONS her rich mezzo-soprano voice and arresting interpretive talent as Baba the Turk in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and several Informoperals, such as last Season’s Louise when she appeared as the Mother. She graces each successive Opera Valentine Gala with her congeniality and good spirits.

Leander Mendoza is a principal contributor to the HRM vocal education and community service scenes. He made his initial ONS appearances last Season where his mellifluous tenor voice and captivating personality wove their musical magic to enthrall every guest. Nobody who attended Opera Valentine 2015 will forget

his Phantom of the Opera Serenade to a Lady, which was accorded a spontaneous standing ovation. Will his lady return for a prospective Encore this year? Ross Thompson, baritone, makes a welcome return to the ONS roster, having been associated for several years as soloist both in Opera Valentine and Informoperals. Formerly active in professional opera productions in Ontario, he made a significant contribution to the development

Opera Valentine 2016 (continued)

of school and community musical life throughout Nova Scotia. He was chosen by Dr. Kemp to be soloist in Symphony Nova Scotia’s concert presentations of Gilbert and Sullivan. Earlier this season he was co-featured with Janice Jackson in the Vocalypse premiere of the chamber opera Ghost Tango. In addition to our professional quartet, we shall hear a talent of tomorrow, 2015 Kiwanis Festival Opera Solo Class Prize winner baritone Matthew McGreer. An Arts and Sciences student at Dalhousie, Matthew is a private student of Jason Davis. He also will be part of the cast for the April 3rd ONS Informoperal concert excerpts from Fidelio, as the Governor.

Tara Scott resumes her role of pianist for the evening, her versatility and technical skills ideally suited to the demands of this Gala’s artistic support. Among her many activities as teacher, accompanist and coach, Tara used her skills to good effect as music director and pianist for the

Raum workshop by Maritime Concert Opera.

* * * Accommodating all requests: separate tables for parties of six to eight guests, get-acquainted seating for everyone, especially encouraging single registrations – you never know, perhaps February 12th will be the “Enchanted Evening” when you will see a stranger across the crowded room – or, one may see you!! Contact Sheila immediately to avoid missing out on Opera Valentine, “Viva l’Amor”.

Silent Auction

Treasures The Opera Valentine 2016 production team is looking for lots of treasures for the Silent Auction to support this very important annual fundraising event. Do you have any items to donate for our auction tables? New or gently used items , even re-gifted Christmas presents are welcome! Please drop them off at the ONS office, or contact us at 902-425-8586, or by email, and we will try to arrange to pick them up. Additionally, if you have any personal or business contacts who may be interested in contributing an item or a gift certificate for services, please let us know by contacting the office.

Pamela Sweet Smith, Producer

Dalhousie’s “Sunday Night at the Opera”

Dalhousie Music’s “Sunday Night at the Opera” continues with screenings of some of the world’s best musical stage works, introduced by Dr. Michael Parker. All screenings are at Ondaatje Hall, Marion McCain Building, University Avenue, and usually begin at 6:00 p.m. Admission is free, but please register by sending an email to:

michael.parker@dal.ca Upcoming presentations are: February 21 R. Strauss, Ariadne auf Naxos March 13 Wagner, Lohengrin April 20 Rossini, La Cenerentola

“Woman’s Faith and Honour:

A Gallery of Heroines from Romantic Opera”

Introductory talks to the Metropolitan Opera

HD transmissions, Season 2015-2016

Lecturer: Dr. Walter H. Kemp,

Artistic Director Opera Nova Scotia

Tuesdays 1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m.

The Keshen Goodman Library,

Lacewood Drive, Halifax

January 26 Puccini, Turandot

March 1 Puccini, Manon Lescaut

29 Puccini, Madama Butterfly

April 12 Donizetti, Roberto Devereux

26 R. Strauss, Elektra

Experience and appreciate opera on a whole new level.

A reading knowledge of music is not required

to enjoy these talks.

Free admission, all welcome.

Presented in cooperation with Opera Nova Scotia

Dr. Kemp Wins Portia White Prize and Names ONS

Institutional Protégé

Artistic Director Walter H. Kemp was named winner of the 2015 Portia White Prize, at “ART OUT LOUD”, a celebration of outstanding creative individuals in the cultural life of the Province, November 7, Paul O’ Regan Hall, Halifax Central Library. Arts Nova Scotia and The Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council selected Dr. Kemp “in recognition of his many achievements which embody the spirit of Portia White, and in recognition of his outstanding artistry…honouring his many contributions to arts and culture, crossing cultural borders in Nova Scotia and beyond.” In addition to receiving the $18,000 prize, perpetuating the name of the soprano whose international recitals not only demonstrated the talent of the African Nova Scotia Community but also encouraged the development of funding for the training of Nova Scotia’s future cultural leaders through the establishing of the NS Talent Trust, the winner chooses an individual or institution to be awarded $7,000 as a “Protégé”. In naming Opera Nova Scotia as Protégé, Dr. Kemp announced that the special project to be undertaken would be of a multicultural nature, commissioning the outstanding Nova Scotia musician of Indian descent, Vineet Vyas, to create, together with his dancer/singer wife Bageshree, an opera based on the Hindu legend of Savitri, blending Western and Indian styles and performance practice. Dr. Kemp is the third musician to receive the Portia White Prize, joining conductor Georg Tintner and Cape Breton’s Scott MacMillan in a gallery of nationally acclaimed artistic personalities such as poet George Elliott Clarke, author Alistair MacLeod and art quilt artist Laurie Swim.

Board Chair Ifan Williams with Dr. Walter Kemp at ART OUT LOUD. (Photo by Stan Salsman)

Opera For All! Layout by David Keenan

Newsletter of Opera Nova Scotia 6199 Chebucto Road, Halifax NS B3L 1K7

Tel. (902) 425-8586 www.nsopera.org e-mail: info@nsopera.org

Opera Nova Scotia

Members at Large

Artistic Director – Dr. Walter H. Kemp

Administrative Officer – Vanessa Buhr-Rountree

Chair – Ifan Williams

Vice Chair – Dr. Eve Roberts

Treasurer – Carol Grimmitt

Secretary – Ann Conrad

Archivist – Jeanette Ireland

Education Director – Pamela Sweet Smith

Fundraising and Marketing Director – Erica Butler

Hospitality Director & Ticket Convener –

Sheila Andrecyk

Membership Director – Elinor Benjamin

Properties & Space – Stan Salsman

Director of Volunteers – Lynette Wahlstrom

Ruth A. Boorman Dr. Neil Robertson

Paul Coolen Franco Tarulli

Dr. Peter Fillmore June Trenbirth

Opera Nova Scotia appreciates the support of

Municipal Government

B y Dappertutto

Both works screened in January as part of the Live in HD Series of transmissions from the Metropolitan Opera belong to that Romantic aesthetic referred to as Orientalism: tales dealing either with the struggle between personal desires and traditional cultures within a non-Western society or with the clash between European amorous passion and eastern religious devotion. Here is an opportunity to recall the titles of some of these ‘exotic’ operas or to discover some you may not have been aware. Match the given opera (listed alphabetically below at right) with the appropriate descriptive comment.

1. The U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln has anchored in Yokohama Bay.

2. A silly old ruler makes a fool of himself over a Tsaritsa who beguiles with “A Hymn to the Sun”.

3. A courtesan is converted to Christianity, but her hermit saviour is lost in lust.

4. An evocative evening by the river bank, the off-stage singing of worshippers, a warrior tenor about to enter a state of ‘denial’.

5. A slain ruler returns to earth as a soul-spirit in order to be reunited with his love, a priestess of the deity Indra.

6. This Hindu priestess not only can sing a virtuoso “Bell Song” but knows the effectiveness of ingesting plants.

7. A French sailor experiences a ‘Japanese wedding’ in Nagasaki.

8. The blinded tenor brings down the house.

9. A blind man’s naïve daughter is carried off at a puppet show, and subsequently is so ashamed that she has been abducted to a brothel that she leaps to her death.

10. A virtuous wife offers herself when death comes for her husband.

a) Aida (Verdi)

b) Le coq d’or (Rimski-Korsakov)

c) Iris (Mascagni)

d) Lakmé (Delibes)

e) Madame Chrysanthème (Messager)

f) Madama Butterfly (Puccini)

g) Le roi de Lahore (Massenet)

h) Samson et Dalila(Saint-Saens)

i) Savitri (Holst)

j) Thaïs (Massenet)

Answers

1. (f) 2. (b) 3. (j) 4. (a) 5. (g) 6. (d) 7. (e) 8. (h) 9. (c) 10. (i)