The Holman Opera Company had included about 35 operas in its repertoire, ranging from Gounod's Faust and Weber's Der Freischütz to Offenbach's La belle Hélène and Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore.Īn enterprising attempt in Montréal to establish a company of international standards resulted in the Montreal Opera Company (1910-13) and its successor, the National Opera Company (1913- 14). The company closed in 1888 following the death first of Sallie and then her father. The Holmans continued to tour but remained the resident company in Toronto until 1873, when George moved to London (Ont) and changed the London Music Hall into the Holman Opera House. In 1867 George Holman became lessee and manager of the Royal Lyceum in Toronto, where he installed his company to give both plays and operas.
They returned regularly over the next years, graduating to a regular company with daughters Julia and Sallie as the stars. The Holman Juvenile Opera Troupe - a company headed by George and Harriet Holman with their children - visited Canada in 1848. The establishment of indigenous performing companies, however, was slow to develop. Many of the great singers of the day, in concert or in staged performances, visited Canada, among them John Braham, Henrietta Sontag, Adelina Patti, Jenny Lind, Emma Juch, Pasquale Brignoli, Anna Bishop, Teresa Parodi, Johanna Gadski, Lillian Nordica, Marcella Sembrich, Louise Homer and Lilli Lehmann. And Edmonton was introduced to opera in 1909 with a visit from the Boston Grand Opera Company.īy the beginning of the 20th century most of the principal towns and cities had been visited by at least a modest operatic company, and Montréal and Toronto were sufficiently large to support regular visits by the companies that toured in the US. Winnipeg opened a large and elegant theatre in 1907 with the Canadian premiere of Puccini's new (1904) Madama Butterfly. The CPR built the Vancouver Opera House, which opened in 1891 with a performance of Wagner's Lohengrin. It was the railway that also carried opera to western Canada. With the development of the railway at mid-century, a touring circuit was established from Windsor to Québec City that brought many companies and famous singers. These productions were invariably truncated versions arranged for easy touring, but in 1853 a company with orchestra, chorus and soloists under the direction of Luigi Arditi visited Québec, Montréal and Toronto and provided those cities with their first fully staged operatic performances. In the early decades of the 19th century audiences became familiar with versions of popular works by Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Auber, and others then popular but now forgotten. Lawrence, and up the eastern seaboard, connected the sparsely populated Canadian towns with the touring companies from the larger cities of the eastern US. Passage along and across Lake Ontario and the St. Most of these and other performances were given by travelling troupes from the United States. Halifax heard André Grétry's famous Richard Coeur-de-lion in 1798. Montréal saw William Shield's The Poor Soldier in 1787, and 2 years later the founding of the Théâtre de Société provided a stage for plays and occasional operas, including Egidio-Romualdo Duni's Les Deux Chasseurs et la laitière in 1789.
Not until 1783 when the English opera by Charles Dibdin, The Padlock, was played in Québec City is there a definite record of an operatic performance. This modest work of poetry with some musical interpolations initiated the drama with music in what would become Canada, but it would be another 200 years before fully formed opera would take root. Previous Next Opera In 1606 at Port Royal, the small and remote settlement on the Bay of Fundy, Le Théâtre de Neptune was played in boats on the water to welcome a returning expedition.
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