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Maestro Jacques Lacombe has extended his tenure as Vancouver Opera’s Music Director for three more seasons. Ahead of Puccini’s Tosca, host Ashley Daniel Foot sits down with him to talk about power, listening and the music between the notes.

Jacques remembers assisting Leonard Bernstein in Vienna in his final year. He recalls watching Carlos Kleiber conduct Der Rosenkavalier and seeing Herbert von Karajan live. He explains why Karajan compared conducting to riding a horse over a fence, and why the perfect orchestra is one that can sing.

We also get into the tritone hidden in Scarpia’s three chords and why the “easiest” Puccini is the hardest to conduct. There’s an unexpected lesson in silence from The Manhattan Transfer, and Jacques’s theory of the “talented audience.”

In this episode:
– Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, and the conductor as a figure of authority– Karajan, Kleiber and Bernstein: three kinds of genius– Tosca, Joseph Kerman’s “shabby little shocker,” and Jacques’s first opera LP– The devil in music: Scarpia’s chords and Puccini’s leitmotifs– Wagner’s On Conducting and finding the singing line– How to conduct silence– What age gives a conductor– Building sound from the bottom up: the organist’s ear

See it live:
Tosca, October 24 – November 1, 2026, Queen Elizabeth Theatre
La Traviata, April 24 – May 2, 2027
Tickets: vancouveropera.ca

00:00 — The conductor is not a king

02:06 — Three more seasons & an orchestra that can sing

04:39 — Karajan, Kleiber and Bernstein

07:37 — What Jacques learned from Lenny

09:25 — Tosca and the "shabby little shocker"

13:05 — Three chords and the devil

15:03 — Wagner and the art of listening

16:53 — How do you conduct silence?

20:01 — What age gives a conductor

21:54 — From the bottom up: the Lacombe sound

23:14 — Looking ahead: Tosca and La Traviata

Marion Newman is a mezzo-soprano, a teacher, and the voice you hear on CBC's Saturday Afternoon at the Opera. Kwagiulth and Stó:lō, born in Bella Coola and raised in Sooke, she spent more than twenty years in Toronto before coming home to teach voice at the University of Victoria, where she once studied piano.

Recorded in her office at UVic, this conversation moves from a piano lesson in a castle tower to a rehearsal at the Orpheum, where the late Bramwell Tovey stopped to ask her how she wanted to sing his music. Marion talks about the "quiet choir" of family who made her a musician, a childhood homeschooled on Vancouver Island, why leaders need to learn how to apologize and mean it, why she no longer capitalizes the word reconciliation, and the name she carries: Nege'ga, she who is like a mountain.

Marion served as a senior advisor on Vancouver Opera's report on Indigenous mentorship in opera, co-authored by Ashley Daniel Foot and Asitha Tennekoon, out later this fall. Midway through, host Ashley Daniel Foot asks her what an institution owes people after it asks them to talk.

Chapter markers (from the recording)

• 00:00 — "Stop talking. Just pay us."
• 02:50 — Ancestors, and where the fight comes from
• 04:18 — Welcome
• 05:57 — The first music: potlatch, the kitchen radio, and a grandparents' piano
• 10:11 — Mary Jackson and the tower room at Craigdarroch
• 12:17 — From pianist to singer
• 14:06 — The quiet choir, and being homeschooled
• 17:56 — Teaching where she once studied
• 20:28 — Bramwell Tovey: "How would you like to do this?"
• 23:17 — What an institution owes the people it asks to talk
• 27:48 — The problem with the repertoire
• 29:31 — On the word "reconciliation"
• 32:02 — Ancestors, Nulis, and the big house
• 38:28 — Nege'ga: she who is like a mountain

In February 1948, an eighteen-year-old Jean Orr danced Giselle in Ottawa — the first full production this country had ever seen, with a full orchestra in the pit. She went on to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and decades later became a founder and the first president of Ballet BC.

Ashley Daniel Foot sat down with her in her West Vancouver living room, alongside Joshua Beamish, who has just founded Ballet Vancouver and opens its first season this month. Jean describes choosing to die by the sword rather than of a heart attack, because at eighteen she wanted to die dramatically. She remembers touring Nova Scotia with no backdrop and running around the outside of the theatre mid-performance. And she explains, almost in passing, the night she put her mortgage-free house up as collateral so a choreographer would be paid and the show could go on.

Josh had never heard any of it. You can hear him find out.

Ballet Vancouver's Balanchine's Apollo & Other Works plays the Vancouver Playhouse September 11 and 12, with pre-show talks before all three performances. The season closes with @giselle, May 13–15, 2027. balletvancouver.com

Chapters

• 00:00 — Two people, forty years apart
• 01:04 — Highland dancing on the prairies
• 01:34 — A land grant, a motorcycle, and the Qu'Appelle Valley
• 02:04 — "My absolute lifesaver of life"
• 03:00 — Josh starts tap dancing at two
• 04:00 — Nesta Toumine and the Ballets Russes
• 04:47 — Ottawa, February 1948
• 06:35 — Nobody called it the first — until Toronto did
• 07:16 — "I wanted to die dramatically"
• 08:49 — Josh hears the story for the first time
• 10:33 — Winnipeg, no bus fare, and Pincher Creek
• 12:54 — Building Ballet BC with David Y. H. Lui
• 14:30 — The car raffle, and the house
• 16:12 — The 2026 equivalent
• 17:13 — Is dance the most fragile art?
• 17:45 — Balanchine's Apollo, and Heather Ogden comes home
• 19:08 — Seventy-eight years apart

Guests
Jean Orr — dancer; founder and first president of Ballet BC
Joshua Beamish — choreographer; founder and Artistic Director, Ballet Vancouver

Stage Manager Theresa Tsang celebrates 30 seasons with Vancouver Opera.

Every performance you have ever seen at Vancouver Opera, every blackout, every curtain, every entrance, every burst of light exactly on the downbeat happened because one voice on a headset in the dark said a single word, ‘go.’

She says it hundreds of times a night. She has said it for 30 seasons across almost 100 productions. The orchestra follows the conductor, everyone else in the building follows her. Today we are joined by Stage Manager, Theresa Tsang.

Full Article

Episode Credits:

Theresa Sang - Stage Manager, Vancouver Opera

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host & Creator, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

Stanis Smith has spent his career designing the spaces people move through — airports, terminals, thresholds. This September, he becomes Board Chair of Vancouver Opera. He's also a clarinettist who self-produced a chamber music album of Brahms and Nino Rota. He's the person who will tell you, with complete conviction, that Frank Lloyd Wright was wrong: the mother art isn't architecture. It's opera.

In this episode, Ash Foot sits down with Stanis to talk about standing-room tickets at Covent Garden, what it takes to convert a first-time opera-goer into a lifelong addict, and why he built a 50-piece art program into the bones of the new $4.2 billion Terminal 6 at JFK. They also discuss Vancouver Opera's upcoming season, the state of the art form in 2026, and the Vancouver Cultural Precinct — an initiative that could transform the city's performing arts landscape within a decade.

A conversation about art, architecture, and what happens when someone walks into a room and feels something they weren't expecting.

Soprano Jonelle Sills came into the world already steeped in music — her mother Desiree sang through her entire pregnancy.

In this Mother's Day conversation, the two of them sit down together for the first time to talk about gospel choirs and opera stages, about coming to Canada with nothing, about the voice Jonelle wanted to keep only for herself, and about what it means to watch someone you love become who they were always going to be.

Bring a tissue.

Today we're joined by a legendary member of the Vancouver Opera Chorus, Don Wright. We discuss his family's legacy, the life of a chorus singer, the importance of opera in education, and memorable moments from a lifetime in the art form.

Full Article

Episode Credits:

Don Wright - Chorister, Vancouver Opera Chorus

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host & Creator, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mimì is one of opera's most beloved heroines. Gentle. Luminous. Dying beautifully in a Parisian garret while the orchestra swells around her.

She was also, in Henri Murger's source novel, a fickle, materialistic flirt her lover described as being "wedded to a thunderstorm." A gadabout. Complicated. Inconvenient. Not particularly easy to mourn.

Puccini made a decision. You've been feeling the consequences ever since.

In this episode, host Ashley Daniel Foot sits down with Vancouver Opera's researcher and editor Jane Potter — the creative force behind our composer series for the past three years — to pull apart the opera everyone thinks they know. They cover the missing act that explains Rodolfo's jealous rage. The real woman Puccini erased to create his heroine. The two source characters — Francine and Mademoiselle Mimì — whose DNA got merged into the figure we recognize. The Viscount nobody talks about.

They also go deep on Kevin Ng's essay Beautiful Deaths: How La Bohème Transformed Tuberculosis into Art — tracking how consumption went from epidemic catastrophe to aristocratic beauty standard, from Lord Byron to Rent to Moulin Rouge!, and how Puccini wrote the disease's physical reality directly into the music itself.

Plus: the 1896 premiere critics who called it "a momentary error" and suggested Puccini return to the straight road before further damage was done. The audience that sold out 24 performances that same month. And Benjamin Britten, who in 1951 delivered the greatest backhanded opera critique of the 20th century.

La Bohème runs April 25 through May 3 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets at vancouveropera.ca. Kevin Ng's essay Beautiful Deaths is available now on the Inside Vancouver Opera Substack.

Maestro Jonathan Darlington on Puccini, broken batons, being mistaken for Richard Gere in Italian lifts, and why La Bohème will undo you — every time.

Jonathan Darlington led Vancouver Opera for nearly twenty years. He's since conducted at the Vienna State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Royal Swedish Opera, and the Nürnberger Symphoniker, where he's now Chief Conductor. He lives in Paris — ten minutes from the neighbourhood where La Bohème is actually set. And he keeps coming back to Vancouver.

This week he's back in the pit at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for La Bohème — Puccini's love story about young artists in Paris trying to stay warm, fall in love, and stay alive. It's the fastest-selling production in Vancouver Opera's sixty-six year history.

In this conversation, Ashley Daniel Foot asks Darlington what's actually going through his mind in the sixteen bars before the curtain rises, how the streets of Vancouver have changed the way he hears Puccini, why he still wants to conduct one specific opera just to erase a humiliation from thirty years ago, and what it felt like to open Sweeney Todd surrounded by a large metal contraption on stage while trying to frighten the audience — a task made easier, he admits, by the fact that he was already terrified himself.

Plus: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Carlos Kleiber, Mirella Freni, four piccolos playing fortissimo, a Vancouver harpsichord builder who makes his batons by hand, and the pre-show meal of champions.

La Bohème runs April 25 to May 3 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets at vancouveropera.ca.

Today we are joined by the Vancouver Opera Orchestra's Principal Harpist, Janelle Nadeau. In this episode we explore the versatile and ancient art of the harp, Janelle's journey with the instrument, and the unique beauty of live performance.

Full Article

Episode Credits:

Janelle Nadeau - Principal Harpist, Vancouver Opera Orchestra

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host & Creator, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

She walks onto the stage, acknowledges the audience, and gestures toward the piano. There is no one there.

Soprano and pianist Rachel Fenlon has spent the last several years doing something almost unthinkable in classical music — accompanying herself. Singing and playing at once. Not as a gimmick, but as a complete artistic philosophy that has taken her from Vancouver to Berlin to the stages of Europe, and to a debut album — Winterreise — that became the first self-accompanied recording of Schubert's cycle.

It was named Album of the Week by both CBC Canada and BBC Radio 3. Critics called it extraordinary. And it started with grief, isolation, and a very quiet voice she decided to follow.

Now she's coming home — to the Kay Meek Arts Centre in West Vancouver on April 12 — and we sat down with her to talk about solitude, risk, what it costs to hold everything yourself, and what it feels like when it finally disappears.

Rachel Fenlon performs at the Kay Meek Arts Centre, April 12. Tickets here

Nicole Lamb is Vancouver Opera’s Director of Artistic and Production. For the last few seasons, she’s been one of the key people deciding what you see on stage and how it all comes together, from season planning and artistic teams to the thousand invisible choices about budget, time, and people that make an opera actually happen.

Full Article

Episode Credits:

Nicole Lamb - Guest, Director of Artistic and Production at Vancouver Opera

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

Veteran Canadian journalist Paul Wells joins Inside Vancouver Opera for a wide-ranging conversation about journalism, politics, and the role the arts play in shaping public life.

For decades, Wells has been one of the country’s most thoughtful political writers, known for his long-form analysis and deep historical perspective on Canadian politics. In this conversation, he reflects on his early days writing about jazz, his years covering Parliament Hill, and his move to independent journalism on Substack.

Wells also discusses the origins of The Paul Wells Road Show, a live event that brings together politics, culture, and conversation. On March 20, the Road Show arrives in Vancouver in partnership with Vancouver Opera, featuring BC Premier David Eby, journalist Richard Zussman, former federal minister James Moore, CBC political podcaster Rachel Siegel, and renowned forest ecologist Suzanne Simard.

Along the way, Wells shares why he believes the arts are essential to civic life and why culture often reveals more about society than politics alone.

🎙 Hosted by Ashley Daniel Foot, Director of Engagement and Civic Practice at Vancouver Opera.

Brandon Thornhill joins Inside Vancouver Opera during Black History Month to discuss Ebony Roots, his concert celebrating 300 years of Black music. From spirituals to Soul, he reflects on identity, opera, representation, and what it means to sing Black history in Vancouver.

Today we’re joined by Canadian composer Dean Burry, whose operas for young audiences have been performed across Canada and beyond. His works include The Brothers Grimm, The Hobbit, and today’s focus, The Brementown Musicians, an immersive opera created especially for elementary students.

Full Article

Episode Credits:

Dean Burry - Guest

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

In this special episode we delve into the intricate dynamics of Così fan tutte and its portrayal of women. We explore the role of Despina as a voice of realism amidst the comedic facade and how the opera reflects societal attitudes towards women and relationships during the Enlightenment era.

Full Article

Episode Credits:

Jane Potter - Writer and Narrator

Mack McGillivray - Audio Editor

Ashley Daniel Foot - Producer

Barry Ekko - Cover Illustration

A behind-the-scenes conversation with costume designer Donnie Tejani, who brings the world of Così fan tutte to life for Vancouver Opera. We explore how costumes shape character, how disguise functions in Mozart’s comedy, what happens inside a modern costume shop, and how designers balance artistry, budgets, and practicality in today’s opera landscape.

Tracy Dahl discusses her illustrious career as coloratura soprano, her role as Despina in Così fan tutte, and evolution of vocal techniques.

Full Article

Episode Credits:

Tracy Dahl - Guest

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

In this episode we're joined by music journalist Kevin Ng and Vancouver Opera's Jane Potter to explore the complexities of Mozart's most dangerous comedy, Così fan tutte.

Full Article

Episode Credits:

Kevin Ng - Guest

Jane Potter - Guest

Barry Ekko - Artwork

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mozart’s Così fan tutte is often described as light, mischievous, even trivial. But sit with it — really sit with it — and it reveals itself as one of opera’s most psychologically perceptive works.

In this episode of Inside Vancouver Opera, host Ashley Daniel Foot is joined by stage director Rob Herriot and Vancouver Opera’s Associate Music Director and conductor Les Dala to explore a distinctly Canadian production of Così fan tutte, originally created at Manitoba Opera and now remounted in Vancouver.

Set in the early 1930s at an elegant hotel on the edge of the Canadian wilderness, this staging features Mounties, waltzing log drivers, and a visual world inspired by Canadian film and National Film Board imagery. But beneath the wit and theatrical charm lies something deeper: Mozart’s refusal to lie. Even when his characters disguise themselves, role-play, or betray one another, the music tells the truth.

Rob and Les reflect on trusting the score, the humanity of the characters, the generosity — and ambiguity — of the opera’s ending, and why Così fan tutte remains one of the most honest works Mozart ever wrote. It’s an episode about laughter, contradiction, and what it means to recognize ourselves in the mess.

• Why Così fan tutte may be Mozart’s most human opera

• How this Canadian production originated at Manitoba Opera

• Trusting the music as psychological truth

• Reframing Così beyond its controversial title

• Why the ending sounds forgiving — even when nothing is fully resolved

• How humour becomes a gateway for new audiences

Host: Ashley Daniel Foot

Guests: Rob Herriot, Les Dala

Podcast: Inside Vancouver Opera

Produced by: Vancouver Opera

Music excerpts courtesy of Vancouver Opera

Audio editing by Mack McGillivray

Vancouver Opera presents Così fan tutte

📅 February 7, 12 & 15

📍 Queen Elizabeth Theatre

🎟 Tickets & info: Vancouver Opera

What You’ll Hear in This EpisodeProduction & CreditsTickets & More

Some people shape culture from center stage, others shape it by showing up early, staying late, and standing just out of the light. Our guest today has built a life inside that second kind of work. Bruce Munro Wright is a former chair of Vancouver Opera, the Vancouver Opera Foundation, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. He is a nationally important collector of Canadian art and a recipient of the Order of British Columbia.

Learn More

Episode Credits:

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

In this conversation, Amanda Burrows, Executive Director of First United and new Board Member of Vancouver Opera, discusses her journey through the arts and social justice. She emphasizes the interconnectedness of art and advocacy, the importance of community involvement, and the resilience of the Downtown Eastside.

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Episode Credits:

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

In this special episode, Jane Potter brings Verdi’s world to life through the story of Rigoletto, a work born out of controversy, courage, and the fight for artistic freedom.

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Episode Credits:

Jane Potter - Writer and Narrator

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

Lyndon Ladeur - Voice of Giachino Rossini

Mihnea Nitu - Voice of Guiseppe Verdi

Richard Wolfe - Voice of Victor Hugo

Few artists have shaped Canadian theatre and opera as profoundly as Glynis Leyshon, who now brings her formidable imagination to Vancouver Opera’s new production of Rigoletto, re-set in Victorian London, a place where masks, privilege, and secrecy hold sway.

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Episode Credits:

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

He's one of the city's greatest voices on stage, on air, and lately at City Hall. Today we're joined by Christopher Gaze, actor, advocate, and the visionary force behind Bard on the Beach.

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Episode Credits:

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

Composer, producer, and traditional singer from the Lil’wat Nation, Russell Wallace speaks about the influence of his mother, the language inside his music, and why singing together gives him hope.

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Episode Credits:

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Tim Matheson - Cover Photo

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

For nearly two decades, Doug Tuck was the voice of Vancouver Opera. Not just as Director of Marketing, but as the friendly presence who greeted audiences in the lobby and guided them through curtain speeches and pre-show chats. In this episode, Doug shares stories from La Bohème to Stickboy—and why he still believes in the art form’s power.

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Episode Credits:

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

Canadian soprano Sarah Dufresne joins host Ashley Daniel Foot to talk about her journey from Niagara Falls to the world’s great stages — and her debut as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto at Vancouver Opera.

From childhood competitions where she sometimes sang “against herself,” to major roles at the Royal Opera House and Pacific Opera Victoria, Sarah reflects on the moments that shaped her artistry. She shares what she’s learned about trusting her voice, why Gilda resonates with her as both innocent and courageous, and how singing can feel effortless when everything aligns.

✨ A conversation about growth, resilience, and the emotional power of opera — with one of Canada’s most exciting rising voices.

Our conversation today is with Madeleine Thien, Giller Prize-winning author of the novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing, as well as librettist of the opera Chinatown. Madeleine's newest novel, The Book of Records, is a sweeping and time-bending, deeply humane work that weaves together lives across centuries.

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Episode Credits:

Madeleine Thien - Author, The Book of Records

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host

Mack McGillivray - Editor

Blending Tagalog and English, film and song, Liham gives voice to the Filipino-Canadian experience. Today we are joined by two members of the team behind Liham, producer and mezzo-soprano Renee Fajardo, and baritone Danlie Rae Acebuque.

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Liham is a digital art song cycle that explores Filipino-Canadian identity through contemporary classical music, poetry, and film. Created by and for the Filipino community, it uplifts personal stories that challenge stereotypes and celebrate cultural continuity across oceans. The project launches on June 12 at lihamproject.com as part of Philippine Heritage Month celebrations.

Episode Credits:

Renee Fajardo - Mezzo-Soprano and Producer, Liham

Danlie Rae Acebuque - Baritone, Liham

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host, Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

Today we're joined by two extraordinary sopranos, Karen Chia-ling Ho. and Yasko Sato⁠. Karen and Yasko are double cast in the role of Cio-Cio San in our upcoming production of Madama Butterfly, running April 26th to May 4th at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

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Credits:

Karen Chia-ling Ho - Cio-Cio San April 27 & May 4

Yasko Sato - Cio-Cio San - Cio-Cio San April 26, May 1 & 3

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host

Mack McGillivray - Producer

Today we’re stepping into the world of one of opera’s most passionate, enduring, and beloved composers.

His name is synonymous with soaring arias, impossible love stories, and music that grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let go. This is the story of Giacomo Puccini.

Inside Vancouver Opera presents: Un bel dì, A Life Begins: The World of Puccini written and performed by Jane Potter.

So settle in, whether you're a seasoned opera lover or just Puccini-curious. This is a story of artistic fire, of human drama—and of one man’s quest to give voice to the most fragile and fierce parts of the human soul.

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Credits:

Jane Potter - Writer and Narrator

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host of Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer

Richard Wolfe - Voice of George Bernard Shaw

In this conversation, we explore how director Mo Zhou has re-imagined Madama Butterfly for today. In her Canadian directorial debut, Mo Zhou brings this fresh vision to Vancouver Opera from April 26 to May 4, a production that honours Puccini’s masterwork while offering audiences a chance to see Madama Butterfly in a new light.

Learn more.

Credits:

Mo Zhou - Director of Madama Butterfly

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host of Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer

Together with Amica Senior Lifestyles, Vancouver Opera shares the power of live music to inspire connection, joy, and reflection in senior living. Amica Senior Lifestyles is one of Vancouver Opera's wonderful sponsors, and today Tabitha Brasso-Ernst is joined by Ashley Sumler, the Director of Quality of Life at Amica Senior Lifestyles.

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CREDITS:

Ashley Sumler - Director of Quality of Life at Amica Senior Lifestyles

Tabitha Brasso-Ernst - Host, Engagement Strategist at Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Producer

In this special International Women's Day episode, host Tabitha Brasso-Ernst is joined by two powerhouses in classical music – pianist Perri Lo, and mezzo-soprano Emma Parkinson.

Read the full article.

Credits:

Perri Lo - Pianist

Emma Parkinson - Mezzo-Soprano

Tabitha Brasso-Ernst - Host

Mack McGillivray - Producer

Cover Illustration by @barryekko

Music Credits:

A Certain Peace from Tobin Stokes' Rattenbury, performed by Emma Parkinson and Perri Lo

Quintet from Georges Bizet’s Carmen, performed by OperaBox Company with:

Today we’re thrilled to spotlight Flight, once again, Jonathan Dove’s groundbreaking opera. Leading today’s conversation is Flight’s conductor, and Vancouver Opera’s Head of Music/Associate Conductor, Les Dala. Joining him is Flight’s acclaimed Director, Morris Panych, whose vision is bringing this unique production to life. Together they dive into the themes, artistry, and creative process behind this stunning work.

Read the full article here.

Credits

Morris Panych - Director of Flight

Leslie Dala - Guest Host and Conductor of Flight

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host of Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Audio Producer and Editor

Illustration by @barryekko

Today’s special video-edition of Inside Vancouver Opera features two of Canada's most celebrated creative minds, Director Morris Panych and Set Designer Ken MacDonald. Partners in both life and art, their extraordinary collaboration has shaped some of the most memorable moments in Canadian theatre and opera. Leading today's conversation is Vancouver Opera's own General Director Tom Wright.

Watch the full video here.

Credits:

Ken MacDonald - Set Designer, Flight

Morris Panych - Director, Flight

Tom Wright - Guest Host and General Director of Vancouver Opera

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host of Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Editor

Today we'll explore how composer Jonathan Dove turned an airport terminal into a mythic space of drama, humor, and humanity - transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. As Vancouver Opera prepares to take Flight from February 8th to 16th at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, today we're thrilled to talk with the composer himself.

Read the full article.

Credits:

Jonathan Dove - Composer of Flight

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host of Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Audio Producer and Editor

Jonathan Dove Illustration by @barryekko

Sxwíxwtn (Wilson Williams) on discovering his parent's untold pain and the legacy of resilience it left behind.

Sxwíxwtn (Wilson Williams) is a Vancouver Opera board member, elected Councillor and spokesperson for Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (the Squamish Nation). Today we explore Wilson's journey, from his childhood influences and the legacy of his family, to his reflections on truth, reconciliation, and cultural healing in today's world.

Read the full article.

Credits:

Sxwíxwtn Wilson Williams - Spokesperson & General Councillor for Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) and Member of Vancouver Opera’s Board of Directors

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host of Inside Vancouver Opera

Mack McGillivray - Audio Producer and Editor

On today's episode, we're proud to welcome the Canadian mezzo-soprano, Mireille Lebel, who's known for her captivating performances across the globe in operas such as Carmen, The Marriage of Figaro, and The Barber of Seville. And currently, she's starring as Count Orlofsky in our production of Die Fledermaus on stage October 26 to November 3rd. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Full Article

Credits:

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host

Mireille Lebel - Guest

Mack McGillivray - Audio Producer

We are celebrating Vancouver Opera’s 65th anniversary with a truly fabulous season. The season opens with Johann Strauss II’s beloved operetta Die Fledermaus. This charming comedy relies almost entirely on a series of pranks, trickery and disguise as plot devices to illuminate the themes of revenge, love, friendship, and forgiveness and reconciliation. Die Fledermaus runs from October 26th to November 3rd, with a masquerade party performance on Halloween.

Full article.

Credits:

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host Mack McGillivray - Audio Producer Jane Potter - Writer and Narrator Bryan Tran - Miscellaneous Voices

A candid conversation about identity, queerness, and joy with UBC voice professor and baritone J. Patrick Raftery and his former student and tenor Spencer Britten. Patrick is about to launch his all-queer reimagining of Maurice Ravel's L'heure espagnole as A Spanish Hour? with two performances on July 27th in the Telus Theatre at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Tickets will be available soon.

Read the full article.

Credits:

J. Patrick Raftery - Guest

Spencer Britten - Guest

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host

Mack McGillivray - Producer

In honour of Asian Heritage Month, we are in conversation with curator, writer, public art consultant and the newly appointed executive director of the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, Henry Heng Lu. Henry shares insight on art, heritage, and the power of cultural collaboration to confront racism.

Read the full article.

Credits:

Henry Heng Lu - Guest

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host

Mack McGillivray - Producer

We always say that Vancouver Opera is a family, but today's guests actually are family. Eve-Lyn de la Haye and Clara Griesdale are real life mother and daughter, and they're both in our upcoming production of Carmen. For tickets and more information visit VancouverOpera.ca.

Read the full article here.

Credits:

Clara Griesdale - Guest

Eve-Lyn de la Haye - Guest

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host

Mack McGillivray - Producer

In anticipation of our upcoming production of Carmen we are rebroadcasting our 7-part series on the composer’s life as one episode. Originally aired in October of 2022 ahead of our production of The Pearl Fishers. Vancouver Opera presents Carmen at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from April 27th to May 5th. For tickets and more information visit VancouverOpera.ca.

CREDITS

Written and edited by Kris Epps
Additional editing by Ashley Daniel Foot and Mack McGillivray
Music Supervisor and Clearances: Kris Epps and Ashley Daniel Foot

Sound design by Kris Epps
Associate Producer: Vincent Huynh

Voice cast:

Bizet:  Felix LeBlanc
Narrator: Jane Potter
Additional Voices:  Ashley Daniel Foot, Travis Baugh Allen, Vincent Huynh

Canadian opera icon Judith Forst and Yulanda M. Faris Young Artist Simran Claire share the experiences of being a mezzo-soprano and wearing the pants onstage.

Read the full article here.

Credits:

Simran Claire - Guest

Judith Forst - Guest

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host

Tabitha Brasso-Ernst - Associate Producer

Mack McGillivray - Producer

In a rollicking and candid conversation, Jim Wright reflects on his storied career and his 17 years leading Vancouver Opera and spills the beans on long-held desire to be a senator from Indiana.

Read the full story here.

Credits

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host

Jim Wright - Guest

Mack McGillivray - Producer

Vancouver Opera honours Black History Month with a special audio documentary about BC Choral legend and music educator Jim Johnson and his wife, choral conductor and teacher Sheila Johnson.

Recorded, edited and produced by Ashley Daniel Foot

Music performed by The Concenti Singers and the Cowichan Valley Youth Choir

A profile on of one of the kings of the bel canto age, Gaetano Donizetti, the composer of Don Pasquale, on stage at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre February 10th to 18th. Get your tickets and more information at VancouverOpera.ca.

Full Article

Credits:

Jane Potter - Writer and Narrator

Ashley Daniel Foot - Voice of Gaetano Donizetti

Richard Wolfe - Voice of Felix Mendelssohn

Tom Wright - Voice of Giuseppe Verdi

Mack McGillivray - Audio Producer, Voice of Hector Berlioz

Today, we're talking with baritone extraordinaire, Gregory Dahl. Audiences from Vancouver will remember him last season as the lead role in The Flying Dutchman. And he's back in Vancouver for as the titular role in Don Pasquale, from February 10th to 18th at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets are available at VancouverOpera.ca

Full Story

Gregory Dahl - Guest, Baritone

Ashley Daniel Foot - Host

Mack McGillivray - Producer