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Patrick Hansen: From Game of Thrones to Schulich’s Opera Marathon

Published: 2 March 2017

(Blog post by Chris Maskell)

In just a few short days, Montreal opera fans are going to get everything they could ever wish for. As part of Montréal en Lumière, Schulich’s Lisl Wirth Black Box Festival  is set to present the Opera Binge Festival, which will cram a total of seven operas into the space of 24 hours.

To sweeten the deal, the festival (which was the brainchild of Opera McGill director Patrick Hansen) stretches across five different venues, promises works spanning over three centuries of history and involves a huge number of Schulich students. We recently spoke to Hansen to learn more about the event’s conception, the productions themselves and the challenges of putting everything together.

What was the inspiration for the Opera Binge festival? Has an event like this been held at Schulich before? 

The inspiration came while binge-watching Game of Thrones with my teenage son last year. For a while now, I’d been thinking about: a) how to create new audience-building opera performances, b) how to get Opera McGill off campus and into the city at large, c) how to create an event to celebrate the 60 years of opera here at McGill, and d) how people take in their entertainment nowadays. The answer to those questions was: BINGE! 

We binge-watch TV shows for many reasons, one of which is that we want to spend a weekend with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then perhaps not watch anything for months. Opera is like that already – people might see one or two operas a year and that’s it. For those who may not know opera, this is a great way to see seven short operas (all presented in very different styles and venues) and find out more about Opera McGill’s talented students at the same time.

Also, I believe that this may be the ·É´Ç°ů±ô»ĺ’s first opera binge festival! The Opera Company of Philadelphia is doing a similar thing this season, except theirs takes place over many days. There have been musical marathon-type events at Schulich before, but all involving instrumentalists. However, putting on seven operas in 24 hours in five different venues around the city is something entirely different!

How did you approach the challenge of organizing such an involved event?

The biggest challenge is making sure everyone can be in the right place at the right time given the restrictions of the different venues. All of our technical rehearsals and dress rehearsals (14 in total) have to take place within a 48-hour window, and many land on the Friday of the start of the festival. Our production stage manager, Russell Wustenberg, is a wiz at Excel spreadsheets and I spent many years administrating opera, so it all comes down to having a plan early.

The festival’s program covers a wide range of material, from well-known masterworks like Dido and Aeneas to short children-oriented shows like Sid the Serpent. What was your process in deciding which operas to put on? 

I wanted a range of operas that would suit our students studying at Schulich (always our first priority), as well as productions in a variety of style and languages. We are presenting operas ranging from one of the earliest works (Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas from 1688) to a more recent one (Garner’s East O’ the Sun, West O’ the Moon from 2015), and these two start and end the festival. These are both by British composers and both in English, with over 325 years separating the two! 

I also wanted different styles of productions, so we chose a children’s opera, a new adaptation of an old Singspiel by Mozart, two beautiful operas in French (one presented in period, the other modernized) and my favorite one-act opera ever written: Bluebeard’s Castle, which will be sung in Hungarian! All of these operas have roles for over 50 singers, which has given lots of students performing opportunities that would not have existed usually.

Can you speak about your new adaptation of The Impresario?

I created this adaptation and translation (a “transladapation”) back in 2002 and have since re-adapted it for a 2017 audience. Mozart’s music is still all there, so no need to worry! It’s set in a New York City audition space where a young Impresario is auditioning singers for his new opera. He runs into two “divas” that both want the part but are thwarted by a jaded pianist and two other talented singers. Hilarity ensues!

Is this type of event something that you could see yourself continuing?

We’re all excited to see the reaction of the public – will they come to all seven performances? The festival is designed in a way that makes this feasible: On the Friday night, they could meet up with friends for cocktails and a light dinner, then set off to Redpath Hall to see Dido and Aeneas. The next morning, they could then head to the Wirth Opera Studio where free coffee and bagels await to be consumed during the performance of Mozart’s The Impresario. After grabbing a quick lunch, they could then get back to Pollack Hall for the children’s opera Sid the Serpent Who Wanted To Sing. (If you’ve never experienced watching an opera especially designed for little kids with children in the audience, you’re not going to want to miss this one!) 

Next, they could take a short walk or taxi ride to the Chapelle historique du Bon Pasteur for the French opera double-bill, which includes a free glass of wine with the ticket price. Afterwards, they could then head west towards Little Burgundy for dinner before taking a seat at the Théâtre Paradoxe for the final opera double-bill. At the Paradoxe, there’s a terrific bar in the back that has beer on tap and audiences can drink while watching the show. So to answer the question – if audiences come, then yes, I do see this as an event that could happen again!

The Opera Binge Festival will run between March 10-11, 2017 and will feature the following events:

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Thu, 03/02/2017 - 15:07
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