November 23, 2005 -

OTTAWA -- When the glittering 2006 Black and White Opera Soiree illuminates the National Arts Centre’s Southam Hall stage on February 18, 2006, two of Canada’s most talented and versatile artists will be in the spotlight. Host for the evening – entitled Love, Death and Divas -- will be Canada’s own superstar Colm Feore, who hosted the event to great acclaim in 2005. The National Arts Centre Orchestra will be conducted by Richard Bradshaw, acclaimed General Director and Conductor of the Canadian Opera Company, and the Opera Lyra Ottawa Chorus will also be featured.

The Black and White Opera Soiree, presented by Bell Canada, is an annual winter benefit for the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Opera Lyra Ottawa. Love, Death and Divas– the ninth version of this fabulous fundraiser -- features opera’s greatest hits, the most memorable melodies from 400 years of glorious opera repertoire. Accessible and entertaining, this brilliant evening of fine food, high fashion, and some of the most beautiful music ever written promises to be the jewel in the crown of the Ottawa social season.

Acclaimed stage and screen actor Colm Feore is perfectly bilingual, witty, and charismatic, with a commanding presence onscreen and onstage. He is a classically trained actor who has built his career playing both legendary characters and unknowns with unnerving conviction. Whether he’s playing a Shakespearian hero, a small but solid role in a Hollywood blockbuster, or scalding the screen with his intensity in a starring role, Colm Feore effortlessly projects intelligence, elegance and grace.

Richard Bradshaw’s career has taken him around the world, conducted a wide-ranging repertoire of both operatic and orchestral music. He has conducted for most of the major international opera companies, symphony orchestras, and music festivals. In his 15 years with the Canadian Opera Company, he has conducted more than 50 operas, introducing cutting edge COC productions alongside traditional operatic fare, forging a strong artistic identity for the company.

Proceeds from this year’s Black and White Opera Soiree will help to maintain and further develop the already high level of artistic excellence that is a hallmark of National Arts Centre Orchestra and Opera Lyra Ottawa performances.

The Black and White Opera Soiree takes place on Saturday, February 18, 2006 at the National Arts Centre. Gala tickets are $275, which includes a cocktail reception, dinner, concert, and a post-concert party with the stars. Concert-plus tickets are $175 for the concert and the post-concert reception. Concert-only ticket prices are $75, $65, and $50. Tickets are available at the NAC Box Office (in person) and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at (613) 755-1111; Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC’s web-site at www.nac-cna.ca.

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Information:
Gerald Morris
National Arts Centre,
(613) 947-7000, x249
gmorris@nac-cna.ca 

Karl Balisch
Opera Lyra Ottawa
(613) 232-9200, x229
marketing@operalyra.ca

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

RICHARD BRADSHAW

Conductor Richard Bradshaw is the General Director of the Canadian Opera Company (COC). Bradshaw first went to the COC as guest conductor in 1988, and he became Chief Conductor and Head of Music from 1989 to 1994, when he was appointed Artistic Director. In January 1998, he was named General Director, the first musician to lead the COC since Ettore Mazzoleni in the late 1950s.

Born in England in 1944, Richard Bradshaw received an honours degree in English at London University in 1965. He studied conducting privately with Sir Adrian Boult, subsequently receiving a Gulbenkian Conducting Fellowship to work with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the supervision of Sir Charles Groves. He also worked as assistant to Sir John Pritchard.

In a career taking him throughout the world, Richard Bradshaw has conducted a wide-ranging repertoire of both operatic and orchestral music. He was Chorus Director at the Glyndebourne Festival from 1975-1977 and Resident Conductor at the San Francisco Opera from 1977-1989. He has frequently conducted for most of the major international opera companies, symphony orchestras, and music festivals. In his 15 years with the COC, he has conducted more than 50 operas. Alongside traditional operatic fare, he has also introduced cutting edge COC productions such as Bluebeard's Castle/Erwartung, Salome, Mario and the Magician, Jenufa and Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms, forging a strong artistic identity for the company.

Bradshaw places major emphasis on the theatrical values of opera. He has enticed from the world of film and theatre such innovative directors as Robert Lepage, Atom Egoyan and François Girard. The double-bill of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle and Schoenberg's Erwartung, directed by Lepage, set the standard for this type of collaboration and brought the COC enormous international acclaim and its first invitation to the Edinburgh Festival, where the production received two prestigious awards. Atom Egoyan's 1996 production of Salome and François Girard's 1997 production of Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms drew large audiences of younger people attracted to opera for the first time. Girard's production received eight Dora Mavor Moore Awards, confirming Bradshaw's ambitious goal of making the COC “the best theatre in town.” In August 2002, the COC was invited back to the Edinburgh Festival and triumphed with its production of Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms. The company's international critical success has been confirmed with near capacity audiences at home.

In addition, Bradshaw has strengthened the musical side of the COC. The COC Orchestra and Chorus have both grown in reputation and are acknowledged as the artistic backbone of the company. Under Bradshaw's leadership, the COC has taken on an impressive schedule of concerts and recordings each season, in collaboration with Harbourfront Centre, the Toronto Centre for the Arts (formerly the Ford Centre), and the CBC. These opportunities allow the company to explore and present a wide variety of repertoire. Popular favourites are performed in the annual free Altamira Summer Opera Concerts at Harbourfront Centre. At the Toronto Centre for the Arts, Bradshaw has had the opportunity to program unusual operas in concert (Iolanta, Giovanna D'Arco), music theatre pieces (The Soldier's Tale), or concert pieces by opera composers (Verdi's Requiem, Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ). Concerts at the CBC's Glenn Gould Studio have formed the basis for the COC's recordings with CBC Records.

Bradshaw has established an ongoing recording partnership with CBC Records, the first in the COC's history. Since 1995, a series of CDs has been released and more are planned. Featuring major Canadian singers such as Russell Braun, Benjamin Butterfield, Richard Margison, Wendy Nielsen, Brett Polegato, Gary Relyea, and Michael Schade, the CDs have been best-sellers in Canada. Soirée Française, featuring Schade and Braun, won a 1998 Juno Award as well as the Gabriel Fauré Award from France's Académie du Disque Lyrique. Bradshaw can also be heard with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on the CBC recording of the Millennium Opera Gala at Roy Thomson Hall and with Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and members of the COC Ensemble in the soundtrack to the Rhombus Inc. film Don Giovanni: Leporello's Revenge.

Also vital to the COC's development is Bradshaw's unswerving commitment to the creation and performance of new Canadian opera. Continuing the Composer-in-Residence program established by Lotfi Mansouri, three full-length chamber operas (Guacamayo's Old Song and Dance, Nosferatu and Red Emma) have been produced under Bradshaw's stewardship. In 1999 he conducted the world premiere of The Golden Ass, a collaboration of Robertson Davies with composer Randolph Peters. Alexina Louie was commissioned by Bradshaw to write a full-length opera, The Scarlet Princess, with libretto by U.S. playwright David Henry Hwang, which premiered in April 2002. Randolph Peters has been commissioned to write his third opera for the COC, this time with Margaret Atwood as librettist. The opera is based on the myth of Inanna, younger sister of the goddess of Death, after a Mesopotamian legend.

Bradshaw has introduced an impressive number of extraordinary new singers to the public and mounted productions specifically chosen to feature the talents of major Canadian artists who return to the COC on a regular basis. Marina Mescheriakova (Luisa Miller, Madama Butterfly, Norma), Clifton Forbis (Lensky in Eugene Onegin, Florestan in Fidelio), Ljuba Kazarnovskaya (Salome), to name just three, have been propelled from their COC engagements to starring roles around the world. Canadian stars such as Ben Heppner (Pagliacci), Richard Margison (Il Trovatore), Michael Schade (Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms) and Russell Braun (The Barber of Seville, Billy Budd) return to the COC stage as often as their busy international schedules permit and perform with Bradshaw in concert on other occasions.

The greatest challenge of Bradshaw's tenure at the COC has been the building of a new opera house for the company. Under the Canadian Opera House Corporation, the distinguished architectural firm A.J. Diamond, Donald Schmitt and Company was selected to design the new house at the corner of Queen Street West and University Avenue in downtown Toronto. Having secured a lead donor and with the capital campaign well under way, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts is scheduled to open its doors in 2006 with Canada's first complete Ring Cycle.

In addition to his duties as General Director of the COC, Richard Bradshaw maintains an active international conducting career. Recent guest appearances have included: The Rape of Lucretia in Amsterdam; Verdi's Requiem at the Mtskheta International Festival in Tbilisi, Georgia; Shostakovich in Aachen; Schubert in Nice; an all-Verdi centenary gala concert at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and Peter Grimes at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse.

Richard Bradshaw is a Senior Fellow of Massey College and Distinguished Visitor in Music, University of Toronto; Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music and Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters of the Republic of France. In June 2003, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa from the University of Toronto and he received a Ruby award as Opera Builder from Opera Canada in October 2003.

COLM FEORE

Colm Feore is a veteran talent with a distinguished catalogue of work. Born in the United States, this stage and screen actor spent his first few years in Ireland before his family moved to Ottawa when he was three years old. Adopting Canada as his own, Feore attended the National Theatre School and joined the prestigious Stratford Festival of Canada, where he became Associate Director in 1981.

During his 13 seasons at Stratford, Colm Feore achieved fame as one of Canada's premiere stage performers, playing virtually all of Shakespeare's leading men, from Richard III and Iago to Romeo and Hamlet -- as well as many other characters in classical and contemporary plays. He returned to Stratford in 2002 for the Festival’s 50th anniversary season, where he won critical praise for his performance as Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady. His first film experience was in a number of filmed plays at Stratford, where he had lead roles in The Boys from Syracuse and The Taming of the Shrew. In spring 2005, Colm Feore starred on Broadway as Cassius in Julius Caesar; winning rave reviews and sharing the stage with Denzel Washington as Brutus. He returns to Stratford in 2006, playing Fagin in the musical Oliver!, and the title roles in the Shakespearean drama Coriolanus and in Molière's Don Juan.

While continuing his work on stage, Colm Feore also frequently acted on television and in film. He recently completed The Exorcism of Emily Rose with Laura Linney, The Deal starring opposite Christian Slater, and the ABC mini-series Empire, in which he portrays Julius Caesar. Colm also appeared in John Woo’s Paycheck starring opposite Ben Affleck and The Chronicles of Riddick starring opposite Vin Diesel. Colm appeared in Chicago with Richard Gere, which won the SAG award for best ensemble cast, and in the miniseries Trudeau, for which he won the 2002 Monte Carlo Television Festival award for Best Actor and also a 2002 Gemini award for Best Actor in a Mini Series. Colm Feore won a Jutra Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work on The Red Violin and earned a Genie Award nomination for his performance as Canada’s eccentric music genius in Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, which won the Genie Award for Best Picture.

Major roles in National Security with Martin Lawrence, Sum Of All Fears with Ben Affleck, Pancho Villa opposite Antonio Banderas, Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor with Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale, The Day Reagan Was Shot with Richard Dreyfuss, the cable movie Sins Of the Father with Tom Sizemore, Point Of Origin with Ray Liotta, Ignition with Bill Pullman, Caveman’s Valentine with Samuel L. Jackson, Titus with Anthony Hopkins, The Insider with Russell Crowe and Al Pacino, City Of Angels with Meg Ryan, and John Woo’s Face/Off with John Travolta and Nicholas Cage have made him a familiar face in American motion pictures.

His television work includes numerous guest appearances on such series as War of the Worlds, Forever Knight, Due South, La Femme Nikita, The West Wing and Boston Public. Colm Feore has also had starring roles in the television movies Trapped In A Purple Haze and Forget Me Never with Mia Farrow, the mini-series Haven with Natasha Richardson, and Widows, Nuremberg directed by Yves Simoneau, Stephen King’s Storm Of the Century, the Emmy Award winning cable movie Truman, with Gary Sinise, and The Virginian starring and directed by Bill Pullman.

Colm Feore and his wife Donna have three children; they make their home in Stratford, Ontario.