Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Announces Collaboration with the National Arts Centre in Ottawa for Opera in the 21st Century Program

Posted on March 08, 2023

Opera in the21sst Century performance 2022

Simran Claire, Chelsea Pringle-Duchemin, and Brittany Rae. Opera in the 21st Century, Banff 2022. Photo by Joel Ivany

Banff Centre, in collaboration with the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, is excited to announce the 2023 Opera in the 21st Century multi-disciplinary program. The partnership will see the first module of the program taking place over two weeks at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, with the second module providing three weeks of programming at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Opera at Banff Centre is a performance-based, collaborative training experience for emerging opera professionals that truly challenges the conventions of opera performance, production, and design. The focus is to develop early career professionals with the skills and experience to take them to the next level of their careers and beyond. Led by Artistic Director Joel Ivany, the faculty is comprised of internationally recognized professionals from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines.

“To be able to collaborate with an institution like the National Arts Centre is a dream. The quality, passion and vision of that organization align perfectly with the training and contemporary vision that Opera in the 21st Century at Banff Centre has developed over the past several years. The opera program this year will be one of the highlights of my tenure!” ~ Joel Ivany

This program offers a unique opportunity for seven singers, one stage director, and one repetiteur to attend both modules to work with and learn from artists specializing in a range of areas including design, creation, composition, and production. In module one, participants will join a cast of career principal artists at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and prepare the roles needed for Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the National Arts Centre Orchestra.

They will remount the semi-staged production at Banff Centre later that summer in module two, whilst also workshopping and presenting a musical read-through of a new opera, Adoration, written by Mary Kouyoumdjian and Royce Vavrek in collaboration with Beth Morrison Projects based on the film by Atom Egoyan.

This second part of the program will also feature an intensive residency for one pre-existing composer/librettist pair to work with Banff Centre faculty, alongside the other participants to showcase a new, ready-to-be-performed work.

“At Canada’s National Arts Centre, professional development for the next generation of creative artists is at the core of what we do.” Says Nelson McDougall, Managing Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. “Mozart’s Don Giovanni In theatrical concert production here at the NAC and in Banff will provide an exciting and meaningful experience for many young emerging arts professionals. We are absolutely thrilled to partner with Banff Centre’s “Opera in the 21st Century” program for this project.”