Media Releases

For Immediate Release January 7, 2013
Media Contact Jelena Bojic, Director of Community Relations
jelena.bojic@edmontonopera.com
780.392.7837

New concept for Offenbach’s dark fairytale

Click on the image to view the circus tents for Les Contes d’Hoffmann being tested at the production facility in 30 seconds.

The opera and the circus have a long history, and in director Joel Ivany’s new concept of Les Contes d’Hoffmann, the two come together for a dark fairy-tale under the Big Top.

“This opera contains some of the most moving music, but also some of the most disturbing characters that any opera or theatrical show has ever known,” Ivany said in his director’s message.

Offenbach’s Hoffmann, Edmonton Opera’s second mainstage production in the 2012/13 season, will be a truly Canadian presentation. Ivany, founder of Against the Grain Theatre, is based in Toronto, along with set and costume designer Camellia Koo. Nearly the entire cast is Canadian, with numerous artists graduated from the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio program.

In order to present this opera, a new set and costumes were created and built at Edmonton Opera’s new pro- duction facility, which became oper- ational over the summer. Previously, operations had been scattered across the city in a handful of warehouses. Based on a turn-of-the-century trav- elling circus, Koo’s set places the poet Hoffmann between two circus tents, where he tells the story of the three women he has loved and lost. As he tells each story, the audience is taken to the freak show tent, the main circus ring and the hoochie-koochie tent. Tenor David Pomeroy, in the title role, recently made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera also in the role of Hoffmann, while bass Daniel Oku- litch studied at Calgary’s Mount Royal Conservatory and is now experienc- ing great growth in his international career.

The media preview will be on Jan. 30 at 11 a.m., at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. Please RSVP to Jelena Bojic, director of community relations, at 780-392-7837, or jelena. bojic@edmontonopera.com.

To arrange media interviews, please use the same contact.

Les Contes d’Hoffmann is at the Jube Feb. 1, 3, 5 and 7, 2013