Burnaby Lyric Opera is bringing opera lovers the real thing right here in the Shadbolt Centre: opera the way it was intended, with fresh young voices, good acoustics, evocative sets and costumes in an intimate setting.
This company has been bringing opera to Burnaby for 30 years, and it keeps getting better and better.
Their recent production of La Bohème was another success. The show is accompanied by musical director/conductor Angus Kellett on the piano, always melodic without being obtrusive. With Kellett leading you into the story unfolding in front of you, you don’t miss an orchestra.
Clear and easy-to-read surtitles also make it easy to follow the story line.
Playing the lead of Mimi in this production is a Burnaby native, soprano Chloe Hurst. Having played piano since age two, she intended to continue at UBC when she graduated from Notre Dame High School. However, in Grade 12, she had played the lead of Maria in West Side Story, and her father suggested she audition for the UBC opera performance program instead. She did – and she was accepted two days later.
She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees there and currently teaches at the Vancouver Academy of Music, in addition to performance. Her clear, warm soprano suits the role of the gentle Mimi in this Burnaby Lyric Opera production.
Hurst’s singing has taken her to roles across North America, Europe and China. In China, she had to learn a completely different form of music notation - another challenge for this rising young singer.
Director Richard Berg has his cast of young men create the atmosphere of lively, poverty-stricken, but playful students. Excellent are lead tenor Kwangmin Brian Lee, baritones Jason Cook and Ian Brown, and bass-baritone Brandon Thornhill, aided and abetted in their comedy and drama by soprano Gwendolyn Yearwood as Musetta, who enlivens any scene she is in.
All these young singers are moving up in their chosen fields, singing with various companies in B.C. and elsewhere.
Burnaby Lyric Opera also hosts four Opera for a Sunday Afternoon concerts at the Shadbolt Centre, another opportunity to showcase aspiring young singers. You can still catch the last two of the season, Sunday, April 17, and Sunday, June 19, at 3 p.m. at the Shadbolt.
