Richard Bradshaw, general director of the Canadian Opera Company, passed away Aug. 15 at age 63. (Michael Cooper/COC)
The Canadian opera world is in mourning after the sudden death of Richard Bradshaw, general director of the Canadian Opera Company and the driving force behind its long-awaited opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
Over his nearly 20-year tenure with the COC, the gregarious and ambitious Bradshaw pushed to expand the Toronto-based troupe’s reputation as a company of note on the world stage. He was celebrated for incorporating 20th-century and contemporary works into the COC repertoire as well as for building a first-rate orchestra.
CBCNews.ca Arts discusses Bradshaw’s legacy with Carl Morey, music commentator, editor, co-author of the book Opera Viva: Canadian Opera Company, The First Fifty Years and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.
Q: How did Richard Bradshaw initially become associated with the Canadian Opera Company?
A: Bradshaw had left England as still a young man and made a fairly lengthy career at the San Francisco Opera. So he was on the continent as it were and [former COC general director] Brian Dickie invited his old friend, who was a very expert conductor, to be a guest conductor with the company.
Because Dickie was so interested in improving the musical status, or the stature, of the company, he engaged Bradshaw as the chief conductor in 1989. The basis of that, I think, was a long-standing personal association, but a highly professional one as well.Q: What kind of company did Bradshaw inherit upon Dickie’s departure?
A: When Bradshaw took over the company, he took over quite a strong company. However, the one thing that hung over the company rather like a pall was this question of a new theatre. That dated back as an idea to the days of Herman Geiger-Torel, the first general director of the company. Lotfi Mansouri had struggled manfully with it and Brian Dickie came with the expectation that he was going to build a new theatre. For one reason or another, the theatre never happened
What Richard Bradshaw had to grapple with when he became the director was how to realize the company’s own home, a theatre of its own. And, magnificently, he did it.
Q: What stamp has he left on the COC?
A: Unquestionably, his greatest achievement was the realization of the theatre, the present Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, the new opera house.
It had a long history to be sure. But unquestionably, it was Bradshaw’s particular combo of personality, perseverance, stubbornness – if you want – and vision that finally brought about the building of this theatre.
He not only did an extraordinary job as the chief administrator of the company, he was a wonderful musician. He conducted the opening season and the opening work, which was itself a triumph. The presentation of the Wagner Ring of the Nibelung cycle had never been presented by another Canadian company before.
He not only opened what was his theatre, he opened it as a conductor. I simply don’t know of anybody else anywhere who could have had two simultaneous triumphs of that measure.Q: Artistically, what did Bradshaw accomplish at the COC?
A: He conducted a remarkable variety of works, new pieces, large-scale new operas. He’s done a number of difficult 20th-century masterpieces, things that are increasingly done now but still are hardly central repertoire.
It’s amazing that he was able to pull these things off, but he pulled them off musically, not just because he was the administrator of the company. When he was down there in the pit, he was a conductor of really considerable note.
I don’t know of any company or individual who had so much direct, hands-on involvement in the administration as Bradshaw had with the COC and at the same time carried out his duties as a musician. One or the other would have been remarkable. To do them both is almost beyond belief.Q: Leaving aside the monumental task of bringing the Four Seasons Centre to fruition, what other legacy does Bradshaw leave behind?
A: Other than the theatre that he’s left us is the superb orchestra. He really has been responsible over a number of years now for building up an ensemble that performs for the opera. It’s the company’s own orchestra; it’s not a pickup orchestra. They really are first class.
It’s a tricky matter to build an orchestra. It takes a long time to build an orchestra and very careful choice of players. But more than that, a peculiar rapport is necessary between the conductor and orchestra, which can’t be bought and can’t be manufactured. It has to be developed over a number of years and it seems to have been developed.
Through training, repertoire, through exposure of the orchestra in concerts as well as in the orchestra pit, all of this has somehow resulted in an orchestra of superlative standards. There’s always an element of magic involved in the development of a fine orchestra. But somehow, there was that element here with the COC.
We have been, here in Toronto, extraordinarily fortunate to have him.Q: What will Bradshaw’s place be in the history of the COC’s directors?
A: The company has been blessed with extraordinary directors, really from its inception. Each one has been able to build on the considerable accomplishments of his predecessor. That has really been the strength of the company.
Each director has raised the standards of the company noticeably and has passed on a stronger company to his successor in each case. Whomever Bradshaw’s successor will be is going to inherit a company of high standards, original repertoire and of course with this wonderful theatre.
There are going to be some very large shoes to fill there. If the past is anything to go on, the company will find such a person. He will be different from Bradshaw for sure – each of the directors has been quite distinctive. I suppose it’s that distinctiveness that has added to the brilliance of the company.Jessica Wong writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.
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