To Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, 2025 is a particular yr. This yr marks the fortieth yr because the genesis of Opera Atelier, an opera firm based by the husband-and-wife crew. The premiere came about in a modest venue, the Walker Courtroom of the Royal Ontario Museum. On supply was a double invoice, pairing Handel’s oratorio, The Selection of Hercules (HWV 69) with Mozart’s ballet Les Petits Reins.
From that modest starting, OA has developed into the powerhouse it’s as we speak, a world-renowned opera firm specializing in Baroque and the Classical repertoires. Over 4 many years, OA has acquired a loyal following, a particular subset of opera lovers with a ardour for early music, introduced in a traditionally knowledgeable method that’s pleasing to the eyes and ears. It additionally marked the start of a four-decade collaboration with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra that continues to flourish as we speak.
Early productions had been held at varied venues along with ROM’s Walker Courtroom — the Artwork Gallery of Ontario, the MacMillan Theatre on the U of T School of Music and elsewhere. By the early 90s, its major house was the Elgin Theatre, the place it continues to carry out to at the present time. The Firm additionally toured to many worldwide locations with a lot success. It was on the Macmillan Theatre the place I received my first style of OA.
As a lifelong opera fan, my desire has at all times been the nineteenth and early twentieth century works, particularly these of Wagner and Strauss. Baroque was not on my radar, to be trustworthy. That was till I had an epiphany of types, when a pal persuaded me to attend OA’s Orfeo on the College of Toronto’s Macmillan Theatre again within the late Nineteen Eighties. I used to be captivated by what I noticed and heard, laying to relaxation my early prejudice towards Baroque operas.
To make sure, it’s by no means fully easy crusing within the arts. Like every thing else, arts attendance displays what’s occurring in society. I distinctly recall in an interview years in the past, when Marshall Pynkoski revealed that how petrified he was through the outbreak of the avian flu epidemic in 2005, when there was all of 250 folks within the massive, 2,149-seat Elgin Theatre. However Pynkoski and Lajeunesse-Zingg soldiered on. They’ve rightfully earned the respect of the performing arts group for his or her imaginative and prescient, resilience, and the timeless religion of their mission.
I took this felicitous event of the OA’s fortieth Anniversary to get in contact with the couple, to get their ideas on the OA’s vital milestone.
Q&A
Congratulations, Marshall and Jeannette, on the fortieth Anniversary of OA! Inform me, once you and Jeannette first launched the Firm in 1985, did you suppose that it might become the group that it’s as we speak?
We at all times believed that Opera Atelier had the potential to have a serious impression nationally and internationally, primarily as a result of we believed the repertoire that fashioned the core of the corporate’s aesthetic represented a number of the best lyric theatre within the operatic canon. Coupled with the extraordinary coincidence of discovering ourselves in a metropolis that’s the house of Tafelmusik, designer Gerard Gauci, conductor David Fallis and a wealth of bold, fantastically educated singers and dancers, it gave us huge confidence within the firm’s future.
What had been a number of the huge challenges through the years?
Our most important challenges have at all times been monetary. We started Opera Atelier with the information that we’d by no means have the sponsorship attraction of an organization providing a number of productions on a yearly foundation. It was a problem to carry true to our mandate, to supply solely twice a yr and to construct all of our productions from the bottom up.
Opera Atelier’s determination to redefine the very idea of interval manufacturing was initially met with some vital resistance, notably after we ventured into the classical repertoire. However the worldwide success of our interval productions of Mozart and Weber amongst others gave us the grit to remain the course.
Once we first based OA, our analysis internationally was funded by Jeannette and me personally. It was private financial institution loans that made it doable for Jeannette to check in New York with the nice dance historian Wendy Hilton, and an extra mortgage enabled my in depth research in Adelaide, South Australia with the nice dramaturge of Baroque Theatre, Dene Barnett. Our dancing on the Moulin Rouge in Paris paid for a interval of invaluable analysis as we had been armed with letters of introduction from Toronto-based curators and professors that enabled us to proceed our analysis within the archives of main opera homes and the Bibliothèque Nationale in France.
Among the many many accomplishments of OA, which one(s) are you the proudest of?
Our debut on the one hundredth Anniversary of the BBC Proms with our manufacturing of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas was a unprecedented second, notably once you notice that OA was solely 10 years outdated.
Maybe our proudest moments, nevertheless, have been tied up with the Royal Opera Home in Versailles, the place OA was first invited to tour our manufacturing of Lully’s Armide in 2012. Greater than 80 Canadian artists, together with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, joined us for that journey. The important success of that tour laid the bottom for our ongoing relationship with Château de Versailles Spectacles and the corporate’s visionary director Laurent Brunner. This is a crucial relationship that continues to at the present time.
Are you able to inform your readers just a few particular moments through the many performances during the last 40 years which have eternally etched in your reminiscence, moments which have left an indelible impression on you, moments that gave you probably the most satisfaction?
Versailles celebrated the success of our manufacturing of Armide by inviting us to remount the manufacturing in 2015 within the Royal Opera Home. Our arrival in Versailles coincided with the Bataclan terrorist assault, which shut down main museums and theatres throughout the nation. OA’s insistence that we had been prepared to stay in Versailles and carry out was seen as an act of super solidarity between Versailles and Toronto — France and Canada. The opening night time included speeches from the stage by Laurent Brunner, Katherine Pégard (the president of Versailles) and myself, adopted by Tafelmusik taking part in the Marseillaise. The truth that we had been presenting a French seventeenth century opera exploring the explosive relationship between a Christian knight and a Muslim warrior princess added a way of unreality to your complete occasion.
OA had the nice honour of manufacturing Lully’s Persée within the Royal Home in Versailles in 2014. This was the opera that opened the Royal Opera Home in celebration of the marriage of Marie Antoinette and the longer term Louis XVI in 1770. OA’s manufacturing was the primary time the opera had performed within the Royal Opera Home since its inauguration.
Our 40-year relationship with Tafelmusik is a traditionally unprecedented collaboration in Canadian theatre historical past, and the institution of a corps de ballet (the Artists of Atelier Ballet) as an integral a part of every OA manufacturing has given us nice pleasure and satisfaction.
We’re additionally very happy with the truth that OA enjoys probably the most in depth worldwide touring schedule of any theatre firm in Canadian historical past. What’s extra, we have now by no means self-presented. All of our performances in main venues, such because the Salzburg Pageant, La Scala, the Glimmerglass Pageant, and excursions to Japan, Singapore, South Korea and all through Europe, originated with invites by the presenters in query.
And at last, what plans do you’ve got for OA going ahead?
Opera Atelier continues to develop and alter, however the change is natural — by no means one thing that’s imposed. Our total artistic crew is totally in sync as we glance towards to productions of Debussy and his contemporaries along with new creations for interval devices. We’ll at all times, nevertheless, discover alternatives to return to our core repertoire, revelling in productions of Monteverdi, Lully, Charpentier and Handel.
We’re very happy with the truth that OA’s productions have at all times mirrored the super range we discover in Toronto, one of the vital various cities on the earth. This can be a phenomenon that has been observed and commented upon in our worldwide touring. It’s one thing that has made OA a perfect consultant of Canada’s values on a world stage.
David and Jonathan: Assessment
Opera Atelier | Charpentier: David and Jonathan; Mireille Asselin, soprano; Colin Ainsworth, tenor; Christopher Dunham, baritone; Stephen Hegedus, bass baritone; David Witczak, baritone; Mireille Lebel, mezzo-soprano; Antonin Rondepierre, tenor; Artists of Atelier Ballet. Marshall Pynkoski, director, Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, choreographer; Tafelmusik Chamber Orchestra, David Fallis, conductor. April 9, 2025, Koerner Corridor.
Through the rehearsal interval main as much as the efficiency, I heard feedback by way of the grapevine concerning the “stunning” and “fantastic” upcoming manufacturing. These tantalizing tidbits made me look much more ahead to opening night time, which lastly arrived on April 9 at Koerner Corridor. It was certainly a grand night time on the opera.
Marc Antoine Charpentier’s David et Jonathas, an opera with a prologue and 5 acts, had its premiere in 1688. It’s based mostly on the Previous Testomony story of the friendship between David (tenor Colin Ainsworth) and Jonathan (boy soprano, right here sung by mild lyric soprano Mireille Asselin), and the battle between David and Jonathan’s father, King Saul, sung by baritone David Witczak. Though the opera takes the type of a typical French “tragédie en musique,” it’s generally known as a “tragédie biblique” due to its Biblical theme.
The efficiency opens with a Prologue, in a scene dominated by the Sorceress Pythonisse, impressively sung and acted by mezzo Mireille Lebel. The next 5 acts follows the twists and turns of the plot, with the majority of the singing falling on the succesful shoulder of tenor Colin Ainsworth, who scored a serious triumph as David, each vocally and dramatically. Within the huge moments, his voice rang out thrillingly, and within the tender moments, his sound was suitably smooth and beautiful.
Fascinating that Charpentier composed Jonathan as a boy soprano, a task right here taken by soprano Mireille Asselin. The function has much less music to sing, though it does have a number of moments within the solar — primarily within the final two acts — making all of it worthwhile for the prima donna!
To my eyes and ears, acts 4 and 5 are additionally one of the best a part of the opera. Asselin was an endearing Jonathan, and she or he sang with stunning tone. Canadian baritone Christopher Dunham made an auspicious OA debut as King Achis, singing with sturdy tone and performing up a storm.
Kudos to the eight Ensemble Soloists, taken by some acquainted names the likes of Danielle MacMillan, Alexander Cappellazzo and Olivier Laquerre — luxurious casting certainly! Entrance and centre in any OA manufacturing is the Atelier Ballet, marvellous as anticipated.
If I had been to nitpick, I do discover the stage motion, whereas entertaining, to be a bit too frenetic and excessive, accentuated by the comparatively small stage space. Whereas we don’t know for sure what efficiency observe was like over three and a half centuries in the past, I doubt that it might be as busy and melodramatic.
Designer Gerard Gauci has created a set specifically designed for Koerner Corridor, fully completely different from what was seen within the Chapel in Versailles. (For the curious, you possibly can watch it on YouTube). The 4 imposingly tall pillars, the plentiful use of wooden matching Koerner’s inside, twin staircases and many tapestries — these components managed to remodel the Koerner live performance house into an environment friendly opera stage, aided in no small means by dramatic lighting and sound results.
Performers happening the aisles of the auditorium to go on the stage brings with it a way of marvel and shock for the viewers. Inserting the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir up on the aspect balcony additionally enhanced their sound from the place I used to be sitting. Beneath its longtime conductor David Fallis, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra sounded terrific, notably within the pleasant acoustics of Koerner, far superior to the dry acoustics of the Elgin Theatre.
With such an entertaining present, the 2 and a half hours flew by in a flash. There are three extra performances, to April 13. To not be missed!
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Joseph So is Professor Emeritus at Trent College and Affiliate Editor of Opera Canada.He’s additionally a long-time contributor to La Scena Musicale and Opera (London, UK). His curiosity in music journalism focuses on voice, opera in addition to symphonic and piano repertoires. He seems repeatedly as a panel member of the Huge COC Podcast.He has co-edited a e-book, Opera in a Multicultural World: Coloniality, Tradition, Efficiency, printed by Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group).
