Chris Hoile has written a wonderful cover feature for EYE Weekly on new opera in Canada in advance of the world premiere (June 5-11, 2009 in Toronto) of R. Murray Schafer’s The Children’s Crusade, co-commissioned by our friends at Soundstreams and Luminato.

From EYE Weekly:

“The contrast of a grand, site-specific work like Schafer’s The Children’s Crusade with a more modest one like The Brothers Grimm, whose portability has helped it to achieve enormous exposure, raises the question of whether Canadian opera will grow most with small- or large-scale works. Clearly, the dream will always remain of Canada creating one of the latter, which will enter the national repertory and, at some point, the world’s. There have been recent developments in this area such as Toronto’s Tapestry New Opera Works’ Iron Road by Chan Ka Nin (2001), Calgary Opera’s Filumena (2003) and Frobisher (2007), both by John Estacio, and Manitoba Opera’s The Transit of Venus (2007) by Victor Davies — the last three, surprisingly, in cities where modern opera had previously been anathema.

Wayne Strongman, managing artistic director of Tapestry, believes, “we have finally turned a corner in opera in Canada when audiences now want to see their own stories on stage.” Dáirine Ní Mheadhra, co–artistic director with John Hess of Queen of Puddings Music Theatre (QoP), agrees, saying that the number of excellent composers and singers, growth of less risk-averse audiences and instigation of www.opera.ca has reached a “critical mass” in Canada that has led to this recent boom.”

Click here to read the full article.