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First Act: Completed
A look at the Four Seasons Centre's inaugural year
Michael Crabb
National Post
Saturday, November 03, 2007
It's been more than a year since the Canadian Opera Company opened its new home, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. During the long, $185-million campaign to get the hall built, late COC general director Richard Bradshaw, its indefatigable champion, promised it could become one of the world's great opera houses. But skeptics thought he was grandstanding or, as Bradshaw put it, "smoking something." A year on, those skeptics are eating their words.
Despite what by European and American standards would be considered a laughably meagre budget, architect Jack Diamond and acoustician Bob Essert delivered an opera house that does what it's supposed to do; provide an optimal environment in which to experience great lyric theatre.
Critics from around the world have praised the sound and intimacy of the 2,000-seat, traditionally horseshoe-shaped hall. The exacting Valery Gergiev, conductor extraordinaire and supreme commander of St. Petersburg's Maryinsky Theatre -- ballet, opera and orchestra -- gave it a two-thumbs-up after squeezing in a brief visit during a Toronto concert engagement. The COC orchestra is in raptures. Says concertmaster Marie Berard: "We're so in love with the hall and it's not just our pride. Visiting conductors seem genuinely astounded."
Meanwhile, opera lovers have been voting with their feet. The COC's first season in the hall sold to 99% capacity and the 2007-08 season looks set to do likewise. Company managing director Rob Lamb says subscription renewal rates, always a key indicator, are running way above the industry average, which is 75%.
The National Ballet of Canada (NBC), the COC's tenant in the new hall, is also happy. "It's been extraordinarily wonderful artistically," says executive director Kevin Garland. "Our productions look so much better there." Principal dancer Chan Hon Goh recalls that in NBC's former cavernous venue, the 3,200-seat Sony (formerly O'Keefe, then Humming-bird) Centre, it was impossible to feel connected to the audience. And now? "It's as if a glass wall has been removed," says Goh. "It's so much easier to draw the audience into my world."
That's not to say the Four Seasons Centre is perfect. If there had been more money to spend, the backstage areas might have featured a fully trapped stage with hydraulic lifts and a built-in revolve, a mechanized as opposed to manually operated fly system for moving scenery and a huge acoustic door to isolate the large side-stage from the performing area. But these are luxuries and COC technical director David Feheley says he's more than content with what he's got. Compared with the old venue, the new hall, he says, "represents a big gain."
Some patrons, of course, will always find something to gripe about. You'll hear the odd complaint about having to descend one floor to reach main-level washrooms -- just as at the Sony Centre. At least the lineups are shorter. Then there are those who find the steep rake of the fifth ring frighteningly vertiginous, even if the sound up in the cheapest "nosebleed heaven" seats is almost as good as in the posh grand ring, three tiers below.
Both the COC and NBC knew that occupying a smaller hall would mean having to stage more performances to maintain overall capacity -- and raising ticket prices substantially to meet the increased operational costs. For some patrons those increases are painful, as a subscriber at NBC's recent annual general meeting voiced forcefully. Yet, as Lamb and Garland explain, without significant increases in government grants, there's little they can do.
The Four Seasons Centre will not become the "people's palace" of Richard Bradshaw's dreams, it seems, unless governments decide to make it so.
First Act: Completed
A look at the Four Seasons Centre's inaugural year
Michael Crabb
National Post
Saturday, November 03, 2007
It's been more than a year since the Canadian Opera Company opened its new home, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. During the long, $185-million campaign to get the hall built, late COC general director Richard Bradshaw, its indefatigable champion, promised it could become one of the world's great opera houses. But skeptics thought he was grandstanding or, as Bradshaw put it, "smoking something." A year on, those skeptics are eating their words.
Despite what by European and American standards would be considered a laughably meagre budget, architect Jack Diamond and acoustician Bob Essert delivered an opera house that does what it's supposed to do; provide an optimal environment in which to experience great lyric theatre.
Critics from around the world have praised the sound and intimacy of the 2,000-seat, traditionally horseshoe-shaped hall. The exacting Valery Gergiev, conductor extraordinaire and supreme commander of St. Petersburg's Maryinsky Theatre -- ballet, opera and orchestra -- gave it a two-thumbs-up after squeezing in a brief visit during a Toronto concert engagement. The COC orchestra is in raptures. Says concertmaster Marie Berard: "We're so in love with the hall and it's not just our pride. Visiting conductors seem genuinely astounded."
Meanwhile, opera lovers have been voting with their feet. The COC's first season in the hall sold to 99% capacity and the 2007-08 season looks set to do likewise. Company managing director Rob Lamb says subscription renewal rates, always a key indicator, are running way above the industry average, which is 75%.
The National Ballet of Canada (NBC), the COC's tenant in the new hall, is also happy. "It's been extraordinarily wonderful artistically," says executive director Kevin Garland. "Our productions look so much better there." Principal dancer Chan Hon Goh recalls that in NBC's former cavernous venue, the 3,200-seat Sony (formerly O'Keefe, then Humming-bird) Centre, it was impossible to feel connected to the audience. And now? "It's as if a glass wall has been removed," says Goh. "It's so much easier to draw the audience into my world."
That's not to say the Four Seasons Centre is perfect. If there had been more money to spend, the backstage areas might have featured a fully trapped stage with hydraulic lifts and a built-in revolve, a mechanized as opposed to manually operated fly system for moving scenery and a huge acoustic door to isolate the large side-stage from the performing area. But these are luxuries and COC technical director David Feheley says he's more than content with what he's got. Compared with the old venue, the new hall, he says, "represents a big gain."
Some patrons, of course, will always find something to gripe about. You'll hear the odd complaint about having to descend one floor to reach main-level washrooms -- just as at the Sony Centre. At least the lineups are shorter. Then there are those who find the steep rake of the fifth ring frighteningly vertiginous, even if the sound up in the cheapest "nosebleed heaven" seats is almost as good as in the posh grand ring, three tiers below.
Both the COC and NBC knew that occupying a smaller hall would mean having to stage more performances to maintain overall capacity -- and raising ticket prices substantially to meet the increased operational costs. For some patrons those increases are painful, as a subscriber at NBC's recent annual general meeting voiced forcefully. Yet, as Lamb and Garland explain, without significant increases in government grants, there's little they can do.
The Four Seasons Centre will not become the "people's palace" of Richard Bradshaw's dreams, it seems, unless governments decide to make it so.
I wouldn't have done much differently, although the retail space which we have occasionally heard about seems to have been a long time coming. I also like the free lunchtime programming on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My job usually allows me the flexibility to attend such things, and I have been to several of these performances.