Operamania

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Fall-Winter, 1994 by Paul Citron

During a very special August weekend in 1992, 25,000 visitors jammed Toronto's Harbourfront Centre to participate in the first ever Canadian Opera Company Operamania!, a diverse sampling of free opera-related activities and performances. People flocked in droves to concerts featuring the COC orchestra and chorus and Canadian singing stars like tenor sensation Ben Heppner.

Standing room only crowds at the cafe watched diva and divo wannabes rev up their vocal chords for Opera Karaoke. They volunteered to be transformed into opera characters by the company's costume, wig and make-up departments, massed together for the opera chorus sing-along, and made the opera film festival a busy place.

More to the point, weekend revelers also bought subscriptions for the COC season, signed up to become volunteers and onstage supernumeraries, and pledged to donate money to the company on an annual basis. In other words, not only was Operamania! fun, it was also a clever marketing and audience development tool -- one that the COC hoped to repeat again when it presented the 1994 version during the August 19th weekend.

"We'd do it every year if we could," says COC artistic director Richard Bradshaw, "because when people have enjoyed themselves at more than one Operamania!, we stand a chance of hooking them on attending opera in a theatre."

So why was there no Operamania! 93? Bradshaw explains: "It costs around $100,000 to mount the event and because we have to fight to get money from private sponsors and government, we didn't quite raise enough to put it on last summer. This is unfortunate because something like Operamania! is a process that takes more than one time to catch hold. For example, the San Francisco Opera has traditionally held a free concert in the park that attracts 15,000 people. There's a lot of hype about the event in the media, the subliminal message being, 'You should be there!', which gives San Francisco a feeling of being a real opera town.

"I want the COC to make Toronto feel like an opera town -- and Operamania! is one way to go about it."

And the media is buying in. The first year, TV Ontario filmed the event as an hour documentary; this time CBC Radio broadcast its Saturday Afternoon at the Opera intermission features live from Harbourfront including its popular weekly opera quiz.

Headlining the Operamania! 94 mainstage concerts was soprano Rebecca Caine, who made her reputation in mega-musicals such as Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera before concentrating on the more classical side of singing. Caine, like Bradshaw, is convinced that taking opera to the people pays off. "I'm all for popularizing the arts because there's always a spill-over effect," she says. For example, I've often had people tell me that because they've experienced sung-through musicals, they now feel brave enough to attend a real opera. When the aria Nessun dorma from Puccini's Turandot became the theme for the World Cup matches in Italy, it turned soccer fans into opera fans."

Without a doubt, Operamania! 92 was one of Harbourfront's most successful summer weekends, so much so, that there was an immediate request from park officials for the COC to play it again, as it were. Since an average weekend at Harbourfront attracts 10,000 visitors, and Operamania! brought in over twice that number, the impact of a populist approach to the arts cannot be underestimated.

If Bradshaw had his way, he would use every trick in the book to make opera more accessible. "We've got to get away from the perception that opera is elitist;" he says. "We have to reach a public that doesn't wear tuxedos. I want to get people involved that are known" That's why Rebecca Caine headlined the event -- the COC can sell her because of her Phantom connection.

Also featured in the two mainstage concerts were baritone Theodore Baerg, tenor Benoit Boutet, soprano Sally Diblee, bass-baritone Robert Milne and mezzosoprano Anne McWatt.

A glance at various Operamania! activities shows a clear bias towards fun. Opera Village was geared to both adults and children and included opera storytelling, stage fighting demonstrations, "celebrity" photo opportunities, and opera games: "The Canada Council gives you extra funding; advance five spaces."

There were opera-related arts and crafts and an exhibit of costumes and sets from original COC productions. Adults learned to dance the Polonaise from Tchaikowsky's Eugene Onegin while children were taught a song and dance from Hansel and Gretel.

Visitors took refreshments in the lovingly recreated Cafe Momus (featured in La boheme).

Concerned that COC subscribers are aging, Bradshaw targeted a younger audience. Mainstage concerts included selections from Canadian operas that the COC has premiered such as Harry Somer's Mario and the Magician and Nosferatu by Randolph Peters, along with highlights from the popular repertoire and the upcoming season.

Operamania! also featured workshop productions of Red Emma, a new opera by COC composer-in-residence Gary Kulesha and playrwright Carol Bolt. Conservative audiences may want traditional fare, but Bradshaw set out to attract the people who go to see plays like Robert Lepage's Needles and Opium -- people who aren't coming to the opera because they think they won't be challenged. He wanted to show them that new operas are, in fact, theatre. "It's a delicate balancing act to maneuver between the conservative elements and the avant garde," he says, "but unless we exploit the exciting possibilities of new opera, we won't have an audience in the future."