Opera comes to the Arctic

Iqaluit residents will get a rare treat this coming Tuesday: a night at the opera.

A group of eight young performers associated with the Calgary Opera company and The Banff Centre will arrive in Iqaluit early next week to do three day-time concerts for Iqaluit school children and an evening concert for the public.

“We’re really excited about what’s happening. I think it may the first time that an opera group has ever performed in Iqaluit,” said Mel Kirby, a Calgary performer, teacher and conductor who runs the musical education program that the performers belong to: the Emerging Artist Development Program, run jointly by the Banff Centre and Calgary Opera.

The “emerging artists” are recent graduates of masters’ programs in opera or voice performance who have joined the program to hone their talents within a professional training program.

“They’re looking to get a foothold in the professional world, so we’re giving them a whole year of additional training in acting, movement and extra voice coaching,” Kirby said.

Their public performance in Iqaluit is set for 7:30 p.m. at Aqsarniit middle school, on Feb. 6.

They’ll do excerpts from Frobisher, a new Canadian opera whose plot is partly based on Martin Frobisher’s three 16th century voyages to the eastern Arctic.

Frobisher, with music by composer John Estacio and words by librettist John Murrell, premiered in Calgary this past Saturday night, before an audience that included Governor General Michaëlle Jean and Jim Prentice, the minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Members of the emerging artists group appear in the Frobisher production in bit parts and supporting roles. But six of the eight performers have been trained to cover lead roles, so the group is able to perform all major sections of the work.

The singers will also perform a selection of solos, duets and ensemble pieces from classic operas, such as Verdi’s La Traviata, Puccini’s La Bohème Strauss’s Der Fledermaus, and Delibes’ Lakmé.

By the time they start their evening performance, the Calgary singers will have already worked all day within Iqaluit schools, performing for groups of students.

At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, they’ll perform at Aqsarniit for about 500 students drawn from Aqsarniit and three other Iqaluit schools: Joamie School, l’École des Trois-Soleils, and Nanook School.

At 10:40, they’ll do another concert, for a group of 400 students at Nakasuk School.

After lunch, they’ll head to Inuksuk High School for more performances and workshops, between 1 and 5 p.m. That includes helping a group of Inuksuk students with a musical project of their own: a production of the musical Beauty and the Beast.

And that’s not all.

On Wednesday morning, the performers will become the audience at another event at Aqsarniit called a “Sharing of Talents,” when Aqsarniit students will display their drum dancing and throat singing skills.

“We’re going to get a lesson, which is going to be fun,” Kirby said.

After that, the Calgary performers will do a workshop on vocal techniques with Aqsarniit students – then catch a Canadian North flight to Yellowknife, where they’ll do more concerts and education work.

Canadian North is heavily involved in the project, providing free transportation to the emerging artists group throughout the North.

Meanwhile, the opera Frobisher will continue its premiere tomorrow in Calgary.

The two principal characters, Anna and Michael, are young film makers from Alberta who become obsessed with the idea that Martin Frobisher was actually searching for an untouched tropical paradise that he believed to exist near the North Pole. Michael gets lost near Baffin Island, and Martin Frobisher himself begins to haunt his dreams. Anna searches for him “beyond the bonds of life.”

John Murrell, the opera’s librettist, says the final scene is “both heart-breaking and hopeful.”

There will be a second production of Frobisher at the Banff Centre on Aug. 8, 10 and 12.

This week, CBC Radio Two is recording the Calgary production for a future broadcast.