Vancouver Opera celebrates the big 5-0

Hwang Sin Nyung in The Magic Flute, 2007.

In 1959, the Grand Opera Society of B.C. became the Vancouver Opera Association and the following April staged its first production: Carmen . As Vancouver Opera launches its golden anniversary season with a concert and gala tomorrow night, Marsha Lederman looks at the five defining moments of the opera's 50-year history.

1963: Norma

Founding artistic director Irving Guttman fought with his board to secure the steep $3,000 per performance fee for opera star Joan Sutherland in the title role. Mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne was cast as Adalgisa and the result was a spectacular, knock-out production that people still gush about. “You had thought you'd died and gone to heaven, it was that incredible," says Guttman. “The audience couldn't believe it. That only happens once in a lifetime."

1983: Nabucco

“Something remarkable happened right in the middle of the opera," says Rosemary Cunningham, author of Bravo! The History of Opera in British Columbia . “The chorus was singing that beautiful lament “ Va, pensiero " and the audience stood up and gave them a standing ovation in the middle of the performance."

1986: Carmen

Mounted for Expo 86, this controversial production by stage director Lucian Pintilie turned Escamillo into an Elvis-like character – wearing tight, white pants and studded jacket – and Micaela into a pregnant ballerina. “It was just outrageous and produced a reaction from the audience that was either love it or hate it," says Cunningham. “There was a real row in the theatre: throwing programs, hissing, booing. Some people were stomping out furious and others were shouting ‘hooray, bravo!'"

1995: Peter Grimes

Ben Heppner, now a superstar, returned to Vancouver for his first performance since Othello in 1981. It was an ambitious, milestone production, but some audience members had trouble with the unappealing protagonist, a violent, misanthropic outcast. “People walked out," says Cunningham. “They just couldn't hack it. But those of us who stayed really had a thrilling evening in the theatre."



2007: The Magic Flute

In a three-year collaboration with first-nations artists and designers, VO staged a high-budget, groundbreaking, West Coast-themed production of Mozart's classic opera. “It was very daring," says James Wright, VO's general director since 1999. “As one of our first-nations collaborators said: We're not just sticking a feather on Mozart and calling it first nations. We dug deep into this and presented something really authentic. We said from the beginning we didn't want the curtain to go up on totem poles and canoes."