Canadian Opera Company

The Canadian Opera Company (COC) is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and one of the largest producers of opera in North America. The COC performs at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, which was purpose-built for opera and ballet and is shared with the National Ballet of Canada. For forty years until April 2006, the COC had performed at the O'Keefe Centre (now known as Meridian Hall).

History
Nicholas Goldschmidt and Herman Geiger-Torel founded the organization in 1950 as the Royal Conservatory Opera Company. Geiger-Torel became the COC's artistic director in 1956 and its general director in 1960. The company was renamed the Canadian Opera Association in 1960, and the Canadian Opera Company in 1977. Geiger-Torel retired from the general directorship in 1976. Lotfi Mansouri was the COC's general director from 1976 to 1988. In 1983, the COC introduced surtitles (supertitles) to their productions, the first company to use them in an opera house. Productions included Joan Sutherland's first performance of Donizetti's Anna Bolena.

Brian Dickie served as the COC's general director from 1988 to 1993. Dickie named Richard Bradshaw the COC's chief conductor and head of music in 1989. Elaine Calder was the COC's general director from 1994 to 1997. In 1998, Bradshaw was named general director. During his tenure, Bradshaw secured funding for the COC's new permanent home, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Previously, the COC had been performing at the O'Keefe Centre (renamed to the Hummingbird Centre and then the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts).

In 2006, the COC opened its new opera house with an all-new production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Michael Levine was the designer, and there were four directors: Michael Levine (Das Rheingold), Atom Egoyan (Die Walküre), François Girard (Siegfried), and Tim Albery (Götterdämmerung).

In 2006, Bradshaw's contract as general director was renewed for another 10 years. Bradshaw died of a sudden heart attack on August 15, 2007. In June 2008, Alexander Neef was named the COC's general director; he formally assumed the position in October 2008. In October 2008, Johannes Debus made his debut with the COC as a conductor in a production of Prokofiev's War and Peace, where he earned critical acclaim. In January 2009, the COC announced Debus's appointment as music director. Sandra Horst, who runs the University of Toronto's Opera Division, has long served as the company's chorus master.

The 2019/2020 COC theatre season was cut short due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, on which the COC ceased all productions after March 2020 due to restrictions on large indoor gatherings. The COC hoped to restart the shortened 2020/2021 theatre season by January 2021, however on October 6, 2020, company management announced that the entire 2020/2021 COC theatre season was cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic.

Neef became director general of the Paris Opera in September 2020 and was replaced by Briton Perryn Leech in March 2021. In June 2024, Perryn Leech left and was replaced as general director by David C. Ferguson, a retired banker and accountant.

2008/2009 season

 * Mozart: Don Giovanni
 * Prokofiev: War and Peace
 * Beethoven: Fidelio
 * Dvořák: Rusalka
 * Verdi: Simon Boccanegra
 * Puccini: La bohème
 * Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream

2009/2010 season

 * Puccini: Madama Butterfly
 * Stravinsky: The Nightingale and Other Short Fables
 * Bizet: Carmen
 * Verdi: Otello
 * Wagner: The Flying Dutchman
 * Donizetti: Maria Stuarda
 * Mozart: Idomeneo

2010/2011 season

 * Aida by Giuseppe Verdi
 * Death in Venice (opera) by Benjamin Britten
 * The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * Nixon in China by John Adams (composer)
 * La Cenerentola by Gioachino Rossini
 * Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss
 * Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph Willibald Gluck

2011/2012 season

 * Iphigénie en Tauride by Christoph Willibald Gluck
 * Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi
 * Tosca by Giacomo Puccini
 * L'Amour de loin by Kaija Saariaho
 * The Tales of Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach
 * Eine florentinische Tragödie by Alexander von Zemlinsky
 * Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini
 * Semele (Handel) by George Frideric Handel

2012/2013 season

 * Il trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi
 * Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss II
 * Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner
 * La clemenza di Tito by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * Salome (opera) by Richard Strauss
 * Dialogues des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc
 * Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti

2013/2014 season

 * La bohème by Giacomo Puccini
 * Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten
 * Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * Un ballo in maschera by Giuseppe Verdi
 * Hercules (Handel) by George Frideric Handel
 * Roberto Devereux by Gaetano Donizetti
 * Don Quichotte by Jules Massenet

2014/2015 season

 * Falstaff (opera) by Giuseppe Verdi
 * Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini
 * Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * Die Walküre by Richard Wagner
 * The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini
 * Bluebeard's Castle by Béla Bartók
 * Erwartung by Arnold Schoenberg

2015/2016 season

 * La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi
 * Pyramus and Thisbe by Barbara Monk Feldman
 * Siegfried (opera) by Richard Wagner
 * The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * Carmen by Georges Bizet
 * Maometto II by Gioachino Rossini

2016/2017 season

 * Norma (opera) by Vincenzo Bellini
 * Ariodante by George Frideric Handel
 * The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * Götterdämmerung by Richard Wagner
 * Louis Riel (opera) by Harry Somers
 * Tosca by Giacomo Puccini

2017/2018 season

 * The Elixir of Love by Gaetano Donizetti
 * Arabella by Richard Strauss
 * Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi
 * Abduction from the Seraglio by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * The Nightingale and Other Short Fables by Igor Stravinsky
 * Anna Bolena by Gaetano Donizetti

2018/2019 season

 * Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
 * Hadrian by Rufus Wainwright
 * Elektra by Richard Strauss
 * Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini
 * Otello by Giuseppe Verdi

2019/2020 season

 * Turandot by Giacomo Puccini
 * Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák
 * The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini
 * Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck
 * Aida by Giuseppe Verdi (cancelled)
 * The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner (postponed to 2022/2023 season)

2020/2021 season (cancelled)
Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian Opera Company cancelled all live in-person performances for the 2020/2021 season.

2021/2022 season
Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the COC cancelled several planned performances for the 2021/2022 season, but managed to produce 10 digital productions and two in-person productions in the spring of 2022.


 * La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi
 * The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

2022/2023 season

 * The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner
 * Carmen by Georges Bizet
 * The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * Salome by Richard Strauss
 * Macbeth by Giuseppe Verdi
 * Tosca by Giacomo Puccini
 * Pomegranate by Kye Marshall and Amanda Hale

2023/2024 season

 * Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven
 * La bohème by Giacomo Puccini
 * The Cunning Little Vixen by Leoš Janáček
 * Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
 * Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti
 * Medea by Luigi Cherubini
 * Aportia Chryptych: A Black Opera for Portia White by HAUI x Sean Mayes

2024/2025 season

 * Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi
 * Faust by Charles Gounod
 * Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini
 * La Reine-garçon by Julien Bilodeau and Michel Marc Bouchard
 * Wozzeck by Alban Berg
 * Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
 * Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni

Notable members

 * Cornelis Opthof (bass-baritone), sang with the company for fifty years.