2021-22 Season
Toronto City Opera was among the first to present live opera with an audience in Toronto in 2021. We opened our season in November 2021 with Verdi's first masterpiece Nabucco - a compelling story of the captivity and liberation of a nation.
In June 2022, we presented the founding verismo opera - Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, and celebrated Italian heritage in Toronto.
Cavalleria Rusticana
Pietro Mascagni
The love, betrayal and revenge of real people stretched to the limits of human feeling by real life. Intense and beautiful music.
Great pathos and dramatic tension flow from Mascagni’s achingly beautiful score in this quintessential verismo opera about the fateful events that take place on an Easter Sunday under the Sicilian sun. After Turiddu returns from the military to find betrayal, hot-blooded pursuits of love and jealousy spread, leading to the point of no return with inescapable acts of honour under the stunned gaze of the townspeople and the bewildered anguish of the young Santuzza.
Our new production will remember that between 1951 and 1961, more than 300,000 Italians emigrated to Canada, primarily from the South of Italy, many of whom settled in ‘Little Italy’ on College St.
Nabucco
Giuseppe Verdi
“Golden harp of our prophets, why do you hang silently on the willow?” [Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves]
The dynamic dramatic process from states of psychological and sociological terror to potent confidence in liberation. Inspirational idyllic contemplation and moral action.
His third opera and first great success, composing Nabucco helped Verdi through severe personal tragedy. The Hebrew Old Testament’s universal narrative and expressions of longing for a Promised Land have eternal human significance. The solemn and inspirational choral prayer '"Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate" [Fly, thought, on golden wings] is virtually an alternative Italian national anthem.
Nabucco is one of the 20 most performed operas in the world, but it is infrequently performed in Toronto because of the scale and cost of a fully staged production. TCO is able to present this Opera in Concert because of our commitment to having a 40 strong community chorus.
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