On February 9, American soprano Christine Goerke and alumni from the program will perform a benefit concert for Highlands Opera Studio. The Toronto concert date benefits the Highlands Opera Studio program, which offers professional level training for selected Canadian candidates each summer.
Christine Goerke’s career got a start with a four year tenure in the Metropolitan Opera’s Young Artist Program. She’d go on to sing with the Glimmerglass Opera, New York City Opera, and other companies nationwide.
Later in her career, Goerke turned to Wagnerian operas, including highly acclaimed performances in the Edinburgh International Festival production of the Ring Cycle. She was named Associate Artistic Director of Detroit Opera in 2021, alongside her continuing performing career.
Also on the program will be soprano Lauren Margison, (daughter of Richard and Valerie, see below), mezzo soprano Simona Genga, tenor Scott Rumble, and baritone Samuel Chan. Timothy Cheung and Vladimir Soloviev will accompany on the piano.
We spoke to General and Co-Artistic Director Valerie Kuinka about Highlands Opera and the benefit concert.
Highland Opera Studio
Highland Opera Studio was founded in 2007 by partners in marriage and business Richard Margison and Valerie Kuinka.
Margison is, of course, the operatic tenor who enjoyed an international career, including 14 consecutive seasons in Met Opera productions starting with his debut there in 1994. On that occasion, he sang the role of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, conducted by Placido Domingo.
Kuinka made her name in the worlds of opera and multidisciplinary performance as a stage director. Over a career that spans more than three decades, she has collaborated with the world’s premier opera artists, including Anna Netrebko, Jose Cura, and others, along with dancers Veronica Tennant and Rex Harrington, and musicians from Alannah Myles to Shauna Rolston. For four years, she directed productions at NYC’ s Met Opera.
Kuinka is also a violist and seasoned orchestral and chamber musician who performed in the Canadian Opera Company, National Ballet, and Esprit orchestras for years.
Patricia Morehead – Elegy for viola and piano (1987) Patricia Morehead – Valerie Kuinka, viola:
Valerie Kuinka: The Interview
“It’s an interesting story,” Kuinka says of Highlands Opera’s beginnings. “At the height of his career, we were feeling very much the pressure of the urban environment.” The first discussions between the couple revolved around Vancouver Island. Richard Margison is a native of Victoria, BC. Valerie suggested checking out the region north of Toronto. “We started the three bears story…” she jokes.
Margison, raised on the West Coast, wasn’t aware of what he’d find in northern Ontario. “I’d spent time there as a kid,” Kuinka says. They ended up staying with various friends to get a feel for the area, first near Huntsville, then in the Peterborough region. Then, they ended up near the Haliburton School of the Arts, on Head Lake in the Haliburton Highlands.
“That would have been about in 2000,” she recalls. “We decided at that time that the best fit for us and our decompressing would be in Haliburton.”
They eventually settled on a location in the township of Minden on a lake. “It was meant to be a sanctuary and an escape from the opera world,” Kuinka says.
For a few years, an escape was all that was needed. As Kuinka explains, both she and Margison are closet visual artists, and so they got into the habit of attending classes at the Haliburton School of the Arts. Through the experience, they began to meet people, and eventually got into a conversation with the people who run the Highlands Summer Festival, a longstanding multidisciplinary arts celebration in town.
“They have quite a full season,” she notes. The organizers also, crucially, had infrastructure in place. The couple introduced themselves formally.
The festival organizer’s response was simple: “You must bring opera to Haliburton county!”
It began a longstanding professional relationship. The Highlands Summer Festival organizers helped by providing access to what they lacked, such as ticketing facilities, and other infrastructure details. “They facilitated the establishment […] of Highlands Opera.”
At the same time, both Margison and Kuinka had a growing concern for what she calls the “drop off” that takes place between promising advanced students and a viable professional career. Many of those promising students disappear from view. Hence, Highlands Opera Studio, and what began as an intense three-week program for seven singers that has since expanded to include pianists, composers, and other opera creators as well.
“To help these people in whatever way we could to a career.” That’s the simple goal. It includes professional training along with audition opportunities, networking and other professional development activities.
“The more ears you sing for, the more people you have in your network, the better.”
The program is fluid, and changes with each cohort of young opera singers to better suit their needs in the moment.
“We change every year to really try to be bespoke for the artists who come to the program,” Valerie explains.
Expansion
As she points out, the Highlands Opera Studio also incorporates an opera school where talented locals can train to participate in the Studio’s productions, along with pay-what-you-can singing lessons, and, since 2022, a Highlands Opera Club for young adults, as well as year round opera-based activities for seniors as well. Along with Lauren Margison, Valerie will be teaching an introduction to opera course at the Haliburton School of the Arts later this year.
“It’s grown from that modest three-week program to all these facets.”
In turn, the Studio has received a lot of support in the region. A new program funded by an Ontario Trillium Foundation grant looks to make opera a year-round activity in Haliburton. A recent call for stories to use as a basis for creating a series of short 15 to 30 minutes operas was recently open for submissions from people in the region.
“I’m happy to say we had quite a flood of stories from the county.”
The Concert
The February 9 concert will go directly to supporting the summer professional program.
“This concert is supporting that,” Kuinka underscores. This year, the program will run about four weeks from the end of July to the end of August. “The arts are still an important aspect of Canadian culture.”
Like most arts organizations, Highlands Opera Studio has not fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels. “The difficulty is that we are having the shrink.” Prior to COVID, the Studio ran at a peak of six weeks with 25 participants.
One good thing that emerged from the pandemic was normalizing Zoom. It means that faculty can actually be anywhere in the world, in theory. Kuinka says they were also moved to offer emotional support to participants, and add agents to the mix of professional connections. “Some do get signed,” she reports.
It’s all about the goal. “The focus is how to get closer to be employed,” she adds.
“There’s a great need. The pandemic caused a backup of young, very qualified operatic artists — it’s stalled them,” Each year, there are more emerging artists to compete with. “The need is even greater.”
At the same time, many of the usual funding agencies, both public and private, are tightening their purses. “The allocation of funds is less,” she reports. But, culture and the arts are vital to a healthy society, particularly when times are turbulent. “The arts are a priority, especially in darker times. It’s essential to Canadian culture.”
This year, between 10 and 15 young opera artists will benefit from the program free of charge.
“Frankly, these young people, we would like to be able to pay them. But, we are able to offer them a full four weeks of accommodations, and professional training at the highest level […] in a safe, empowering environment that is Haliburton County.”
- Find more details about the February 9 benefit concert [HERE].
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