Toronto’s Opera 5 and Montreal’s Opera McGill have teamed up for an innovative professional development program that benefits not only emerging opera singers, but audiences as well. The program will culminate in a production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw June 12 to 15.
We spoke to Rachel Krehm, General Director of Opera 5 and soprano, Patrick Hansen, Director of Opera McGill, Jaclyn Grossman, Intern Program Co-ordinator at Opera 5, and Amanda Smith, Director for The Turn of the Screw and Artistic Director at FAWN Chamber Creative about the internship program, as well as the upcoming production.
The Q&A
How did the program involving the Opera McGill interns come together?
Patrick Hansen: This internship is the result of so many texts, phone calls, zooms and in-person discussions that we’ve all had for at least five years. Talking about what’s missing in young artist training programs (something I’ve been thinking about since running the Glimmerglass YAP 20 years ago.) We’ve realized, from our very distinct POVs, that the future is about portfolio career artistry and this internship is a manifestation of our thoughts and brainstorming sessions.
Jaclyn Grossman: This program was born out of a desire to help empower artists to pursue meaningful and feasible careers in an ever-changing opera industry. The earliest plans for portfolio-style artist training began back at the 2019 Association for Opera in Canada Summit, and after years of discussions with artists, creatives, and administrators at all career levels, the first iteration is happening. Each of us involved brings our own unique knowledge from pursuing multi-faceted careers ourselves, and years of experience training artists both in performance and professional areas.
Rachel Krehm: The reality of the situation is that very few opera singers living in Canada today are able to sustain themselves 100% on their singing alone. Traditionally, singers took on voice students to supplement performing careers. When I left school, I had other interests rather than teaching on the side and so I built my own career around my singing to be able to live and work in Canada.
As I started producing opera, writing, understanding the business world more, I discovered that everything that I did outside of singing, I could bring back to my art and that made me a more sensitive and better artist. But, all of us that did other things to sustain ourselves used to hide the other parts of our lives because the opera industry looked down on singers who had other skills aside from singing. I want this program to encourage singers to develop other skills to help sustain themselves once out of school, but also so that they can build the multifaceted artistic career that will be able to sustain themselves financially as well as artistically.
What makes it different from other opera internship programs?
Patrick Hansen: Internships in opera are almost always tied to one skill, I.e. apprentice singers, backstage crew, office admin interns, development department interns, etc. This internship explores training singers in singing AND other multiple skillsets.
Jaclyn Grossman: Our internship seeks to engage artists in multiple levels of mentorship. They have the opportunity to learn from seasoned professionals, mid-career mentors, and their peers. Just like in many other professional fields, all three levels of mentorship are essential for both short and long term career success.
Rachel Krehm: Network and skills are essential to building a career and we wanted to be able to give these interns practical learning opportunities and access to professional artists in Canada as a part of this training, which should serve them positively as they leave school and begin to build their own unique artistic careers.
How important are such opportunities for early career opera artists?
Rachel Krehm: When I left school, I started an opera company to begin to learn secondary skills in order to be able to produce opera. I was lucky in that I was working in my family business as well and was able to transfer business and entrepreneurial skills to my work in Opera 5. Even so, I came against a huge learning curve in terms of what was needed on the production side to create opera. Programs like the Opera 5 Opera McGill Internship will allow opera artists an opportunity to learn secondary skills, as well as improve their artistry in a more structured that didn’t exist for me and singer colleagues of my age.
Jaclyn Grossman: This is one of the only training programs in Canada that provides artists with professional performance/cover experience, opportunities to develop a secondary skill-set in production or administration, and the opportunity to engage with mentors and meet professionals at all levels. The landscape of the opera industry is constantly changing, and the “prescribed path” has never been less clear. Programs like this equip artists with all the skills they need to pursue professional work, self-produce, pivot into new opportunities, or explore new paths. It’s essential that artists today have a toolkit that allows them to travel down any (or often all) of these paths.
Patrick Hansen: This will be the first time an entire cover cast comprised of students from one academic program anywhere in North America receives professional contracts to not just sing but to discover other skills needed in the operatic field. This marks the professional debuts of six Opera McGill students, including [what is believed to be] the first professional debut on the Canadian operatic stage by a transgender tenor, Patricia Yates.
How has the program been progressing so far?
Jaclyn Grossman: Our interns have the opportunity to engage with the Opera 5 team and additional mentors in a few different ways leading up to their time in Toronto. Interns will participate in professional development workshops ranging from grant writing to project management, receive 1-on-1 mentorship with our professional cast and creative/production team members, and engage in dramaturgical sessions with our director, Amanda Smith. Even our audition and interview process included feedback to help interns further develop this skill for the future!
Why choose Britten’s The Turn of the Screw? What qualities does it offer performers and audiences?
Patrick Hansen: For such a formally structured piece (harmonically and thematically), it offers artists a huge degree of flexibility in creating characters, telling the story, and pushing the aesthetics of 21st century opera production.
Amanda Smith: There are so many nuanced storytelling opportunities in both the music and libretto. The piece is built around doubt and accusations, so it invites both the audience and artists to infuse meaning between the most explicit moments in the piece. The score provides a rich subtext that can nudge artists and audiences in a variety of directions, scattering clues around so we can have fun connecting the dots of the whys and whos of this ghost story. Since there really is no ultimate certainty around what happens after we die, these kinds of mysteriously supernatural stories have an undeniable draw for so many people, whether they come with their own beliefs about the afterlife or not.
What does the piece offer the Opera McGill interns in particular?
Patrick Hansen: Young singers need to explore their singing acting skills in their native tongue. Quite often, students have to fake understanding the text word for word because so much of opera is in Italian and German (unless they happen to speak those languages.) This English libretto gives these students some of the best text written for opera in the 20th century. Vocally, the roles are not beyond any young singer, so this allows them to really stretch their abilities to synthesize singing with acting.
What can you tell us about the production?
Amanda Smith: This production of The Turn of the Screw is going to be very magical — emphasis on the magic! We will be situated in late Victorian England, during a time when belief systems about life, death, and religion were rapidly being called into question. As such, spiritualism and magical practices became more prominent as an alternative to Christianity to understand the natural, and supernatural, world. In a society known for its deep seated rules of propriety, paired with a history of condemning witchcraft, those who practiced often had to be careful of who knows of their ways. Even today, we are no stranger of the destruction fear can bring to those who are seen as “other”. Our show asks us what scares us most, when we learn that our whole understanding of reality is a lie or when we can see nothing more than what we have been told.
Rachel Krehm: We are unbelievably excited to welcome our two casts, the interns and also a main cast made up of amazing singers from across Canada. Elizabeth Polese, Krisztina Szabo, Asitha Tennekoon, Ryan McDonald, Thera Barclay and I make up this cast. We also will be acting as cast mentors to the intern cast made up of Kate Fogg, MacKenzie Sechi, Patricia Yates, Mala Weissberg, Paige Robinson, and Bri Jones. We are also so excited to share the full chamber ensemble of 13 instruments as originally imaged by Britten. The colours of the ensemble will add to the magic of the show! Opera 5 is beyond thrilled that this show with these two stupendous casts will mark Opera 5’s return to live theatre.
The Personnel
The Creative Team
Rachel Krehm, soprano, General Director of Opera 5
Soprano Rachel Krehm wears multiple hats as the co-founder and General Director of Opera 5. In the opera, she’ll be performing the role of Miss Jessel. As a performer, her work includes opera, new music, art song, improvisation, and voice and web-series acting. She is also a writer and producer. She is a founding member of Whose Opera Is It Anyway?, an opera improv team. In Feb 2024, Rachel stepped in for the world premiere of Cecilia Livingston’s orchestral song cycle Breath Alone for the Kingston Symphony Orchestra with less than 3 weeks notice.
Jaclyn Grossman, soprano, Opera 5 Intern Program Coordinator
Dramatic soprano Jaclyn makes her debut in the 2023/24 season as Freia in Das Rheingold with Edmonton Opera and joins the Buffalo Philharmonic as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony under JoAnn Falletta. She is co-founder of Likht Ensemble, and was the creator and facilitator of the Association for Opera in Canada’s RBC Fellowship and workshop series, which has helped over 1,000 Canadian artists through development and mentorship opportunities.
Patrick Hansen, Artistic Director of Opera McGill
Patrick Hansen is the Artistic Director of Opera McGill and an associate professor of music at the Schulich School of Music. He is currently serving on the membership council for Opera America. He is an opera producer, stage director, conductor, vocal coach, collaborative pianist, and artistic administrator, and has worked on the creative and producing teams for over 300 operas. Recent credits include directing and choreographing the Bulgarian premiere of Weill’s Street Scene.
Amanda Smith, Director of The Turn of the Screw
Toronto-based stage director Amanda Smith is the Founding Artistic Director of FAWN Chamber Creative. With FAWN, she commissions, develops, produces, and directs new opera and experimental music performances. She is currently completing a Master’s at York University in Interdisciplinary Studies. Amanda has created live shows for Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Opera Lyra Ottawa, Against the Grain Theatre, and Stratford Summer Music Festival, among others.
Evan Mitchell, Music Director of Opera 5 and Music Director (Conductor) for The Turn of the Screw
Evan Mitchell’s career in music began with drum lesson at 16. His current work includes conducting symphonic pieces, opera, contemporary music, and films live in concert. He has focused onCanadian artists and composers, premiering over 30 new Canadian works during his career.
Main Cast
Krisztina Szabo, mezzo-soprano: Mrs. Grose
Along with her extensive credits performing across North America, Krisztina is a favourite of Toronto audiences, and frequent performer with Tafelmusik, the Canadian Opera Company, Tapestry Opera, among others. Outside of Canada, she has performed with San Francisco Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Royal Opera and Netherlands Opera, among others. The recording of her performance in George Benjamin’s new opera, Lessons in Love and Violence, received a Grammy nomination for Best Opera Recording.
Ryan McDonald, countertenor: Miles
An award winner from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition, Ryan performed a variety of roles and repertoire, including as a soloist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, London Handel Orchestra, Theatre of Early Music, and Nota Bene Players, among others. A co- founder of OperaQ, focused specifically on presenting queer theater, by queer artists for queer audiences, Ryan is currently pursuing a DMA in Historical Performance at the University of Toronto.
Elizabeth Polese, soprano: Governess
Canadian soprano Elizabeth Polese has recently been a young artist with Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, Tanglewood Music Center, Highlands Opera Studio, and Detroit Opera. Recent roles include Nuria in Ainadamar with Opéra de Montréal, Marguerite (cover) in Faust with Detroit Opera, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte with Detroit Opera and Great Lakes Chamber Festival, and concerts with Orchestre Classique de Montréal, Domaine Forget (Charlevoix), and Gewandhaus Orchestre (Leipzig).
Thera Barclay, soprano: Flora
Ottawa native Thera Barclay has performed operatic, recital, and concert repertoire across Canada, Europe, and the United States. Performance highlights include Marie (La fille du régiment), Marzelline (Fidelio), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance), Barbarina (The Marriage of Figaro), Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia), Diana (Siren Song), Pamina, Zweite Dame, Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Poppea (Lʼincoronazione di Poppea), Suor Genovieffa (Suor Angelica), and Lauretta and Nella (Gianni Schicchi).
Asitha Tennekoon, tenor: Peter Quint/Prologue
Sri Lankan tenor Asitha Tennekoon won a Dora Award in 2016 for his portrayal of Paul in
Tapestry Opera/Scottish Opera’s Rocking Horse Winner. His repertoire includes Baroque to experimental music. The weekend, he’ll be singing the role of Boy Angel in Du Yun and Royce Vavrek’s Pulitzer Prizewinning Angel’s Bone presented by Loose Tea Music Theatre in its Toronto premiere. Recent operatic debuts include Ferrando in Edmonton Opera’s Cosi fan tutte, and the First Priest with Canadian Opera Company’s The Magic Flute.
Intern Cast
Kate Fogg (Governess) is a writer and soprano from Bangor, Maine. Kate is pursuing a Master of Music in Voice and Opera at McGill University. Upcoming performances with Opera McGill include various roles in Sondheim at Segal and La Fée in Massenet’s Cendrillon. Kate completed a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism at The University of Maine.
Patricia Yates (Peter Quint/Prologue) is a classical tenor, vocal coach, piano repetiteur and writer, from West Yorkshire, UK, based in Montréal. She will obtain her Master of Music from McGill University in 2024, having graduated from the University of Leeds with a First Class Bachelor of Music in 2021.
Paige Robinson (Flora) is a 20 year old coloratura soprano from Calgary, Alberta, currently in her second year of undergraduate study at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. She has performed regularly in competitions such as NATS Songfest, Calgary Performing Arts Festival, and Calgary Contemporary Competition.
A recipient of awards including title of “Musical Prodigy” from the State of Israel, among others, mezzo soprano Mala Weissberg (Miles) is from Tel Aviv, Israel. Recent performance highlights include guest soloist in International Women’s Day concert with Femme d’Europe in Brussels and soloist in ‘Love, Beauty and Death in Venice’ concert with Tafelmusik in Toronto.
MacKenzie Sechi (Mrs. Grose) is a mezzo soprano from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, currently in her first year of the Master of Music in Opera and Voice at McGill. She is a recent graduate of the Bachelor of Music in Performance program at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Soprano Bri Jones (Miss Jessel) is currently pursuing their Masters of Music degree at McGill University. As a graduate student, Bri played the role of The Parrot in the Canadian Premier of Plaything by Anna Pidgorna in November 2023. She completed her Bachelor of Music at McGill. Bri has performed as a soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.
- Find out more about the June production of The Turn of the Screw, and get tickets, [HERE].
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