Two pairs make winners

COC opens the season with a strong line-up of original productions

If you're an opera fan, don't wait until later in the year to think about seeing a show. The Canadian Opera Company is opening the season with a sensational pair of double-bills. Both are original productions with very strong creative teams; one is a remount, while the other is brand new.
Those who missed the sold-out production a few years ago will be glad to hear they're getting another chance to see the international hit Bluebeard's Castle/Erwartung. Robert Lepage's dreamlike and innovative conception of the two shows, with staging by François Racine and design by Michael Levine and Robert Thomson, has toured around the world. In 1993 it was awarded the Scotsman Hamada Prize, valued at £50,000.
Bluebeard's Castle/Erwartung is accompanied by an unusual pairing of Puccini's Il Tabarro and Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana. For this production the COC has called upon opera director Tom Diamond, who created the big New York hit, Squonk. Set and costume design is by Dora Award-winning Toronto designer Teresa Przybylski.
Born in Poland Przybylski is also a trained architect, and practiced that field in Toronto before moving mainly into stage design. She is one of this city's most talented designers, and has created sets and costumes for most of Toronto's major theatres. Among her most outstanding work have been the visuals for Whale at Young People's Theatre and Second Nature for Video Cabaret. With the COC she has previously designed Red Emma and The Emperor of Atlantis.
As there are relatively few opportunities to design a full-scale new opera production, Przybylski is pleased to have the chance to work on the big canvas that opera affords. "In opera you have to design with music so that the space is inhabited by music. Every line is carefully chosen," she says. For this project, "I wanted to do something that's very powerful and yet comes as the background with the music and the singers. Also something that will work with two people onstage and when there's 60 people."
The double bill called for a pair of distinct sets that would somehow work together. "We found that putting those two works together was very interesting, but they both have very specific locations," says Przybylski. "The two locations are quite different, but we are able to pull them together using different colours. The main composition is quite similar."
"In a way when you look at the set that I did, it could be a building in Japan; I'm very impressed by Japanese architects and design in general," she says. However, she also examined the art of Renaissance Italy. "I did study a lot of Italian paintings. I thought that was my anchoring design."
Overall, she says, the result is "probably quite unusual for an opera."

The Canadian Opera Company's double bill of Il Tabarro and Cavalleria Rusticana runs from now until October 5, while Bluebeard's Castle/Erwartung runs from September 21 to October 6, both at the Hummingbird Centre. For tickets call 416-872-2262 or visit www.ticketmaster.ca.

Publication Date: 2001-09-23
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=422