Two opera companies, two very different mandates, and one big question: how do you build an opera future that feels both ambitious and welcoming? We sit down with Gordon Gerrard, newly appointed artistic director of Manitoba Opera and continuing artistic director of City Opera Vancouver, to talk about what he wants to protect, what he wants to change, and what he’s excited to try next.

Gordon takes us from a childhood on a rural Manitoba farm to collaborative piano training in New York, where opera and art song became a lifelong obsession. We dig into the moment he realized the same opera can land in completely different ways depending on the space, from a 2,300 seat hall to an intimate room where every facial expression reads, and why that insight still shapes how he thinks about programming, casting, and audience experience.

From there, we get specific about what’s ahead. City Opera Vancouver is leaning into chamber opera and new commissions, including a major work exploring Canada’s LGBT purge, developed with a partnerships that connect directly to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, just down the street from his new role at Manitoba Opera. Back in Winnipeg, Gordon shares how he plans to listen first, balance classics with contemporary work, and think seriously about what it means to be Manitoba Opera, not just a Winnipeg company.

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by the editor of Opera Canada, currently Michael Jones after Elizabeth Bowman hosted seasons 1 and 2. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.

A new general director can change the feel of an opera company long before their first programmed season arrives. We’re joined by Ian Derrer, newly arrived in Toronto and stepping into leadership at the Canadian Opera Company, to talk about the path that brought him here and what he’s listening for as he gets to know the COC from the inside.

Ian shares how growing up around rehearsals turned into a career that moved from singing ambitions to backstage work, stage management and ultimately opera administration at major institutions. We dig into what opera leadership really looks like day-to-day: solving immediate problems, planning multiple seasons years in advance, and keeping artists and staff supported while the organization also has to fundraise, market and build public trust.

We also spotlight what’s coming up, including the world premiere of Empire of Wild and why new opera is both exhilarating and high risk, with creative teams building the work in real time and fewer safety nets when something goes sideways. From beloved standard repertoire to personal bucket-list titles, Ian gives a candid look at how taste, feasibility and community impact collide in season planning.

Finally, we tackle the big question: what makes the Canadian Opera Company a national opera company, and what responsibility comes with that label across Canada’s opera ecosystem.

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by the editor of Opera Canada, currently Michael Jones after Elizabeth Bowman hosted seasons 1 and 2. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.

She walked into an asylum on purpose and the world couldn’t ignore what she found. We’re joined by award-winning Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch to talk about 10 Days in a Madhouse, her opera with composer Rene Orth, and the real investigative journalism of Nellie Bly, who pretended to be “mad” to expose the brutal conditions inside a women’s institution in 19th-century New York.

We start with Hannah’s route from actor training at the National Theatre School to a life built around making new work, then follow her jump into opera through Tapestry Opera’s LIBLAB. She explains why opera voices feel physical in the room to her and how contemporary opera lets a writer lean into poetry, stylization and emotional intensity. If you’re curious about how a libretto is written, how composers and librettists collaborate, or why music can deliver meaning faster than words, her craft talk is full of usable insight.

From there, we dig into the story engine of 10 Days in a Madhouse: what Bly discovered and how the system swept up women for reasons that had nothing to do with mental health. Hannah also shares a sharp opera-writing principle she lives by, the creative power of a women’s chorus, and what it takes to make a bold structure like reverse chronology land with an audience.

If this conversation sparks something for you, subscribe to Opera Glasses, share the episode with an opera-curious friend, and leave us a review so more listeners can find the show. What’s a real-life story you think deserves the opera treatment?

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by the editor of Opera Canada, currently Michael Jones after Elizabeth Bowman hosted seasons 1 and 2. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.

A premiere disappears three months before opening night, and the artists are told after the decision is already made. That’s the moment that frames our conversation with mezzo-soprano and broadcaster Marion Newman, a singer we’ve long admired for her voice, her wit and her steady insistence on truth.

We talk about Indians On Vacation, the new Canadian opera adapted from Thomas King’s novel, and why Marion was drawn to Mimi: an Indigenous, middle-aged woman who stays alive, loves hard, laughs often and refuses to let anxiety impact her travel. Marion walks us through Mimi and Bird’s relationship and the rare power of a story that centers Indigenous joy, curiosity and normal life without pretending history isn’t there.

From there, we zoom out to the the development of the operatic Indians on Vacation: pandemic-era workshops, the thrill of a Banff sing-through with orchestra, and then the gut punch of cancellation after years of work involving roughly two dozen Indigenous artists. Marion speaks plainly about what it feels like when stories are shaped inside institutions where final authority still often sits outside the community being represented, and why meaningful consultation can’t be an afterthought.

We close with what comes next: Stories Don’t Die: The Artists of Indians on Vacation, a May 9 event in Toronto presented by Against the Grain Theatre featuring selections from the score and a live conversation with the audience.

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by the editor of Opera Canada, currently Michael Jones after Elizabeth Bowman hosted seasons 1 and 2. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.

A four-month-old mystery wrapped in newspaper. A fairy tale that has toured hundreds of times. A classroom full of kids who cheer without restraint. We sit down with Canadian composer Dean Burry to explore how opera becomes irresistible when it balances big myths with small, human truths.

Dean shares the thread that runs through his work from The Brothers Grimm and The Hobbit to the headline-gripping Baby Kintyre: find the poetry inside a story, then let music and text reveal the people beneath the plot. He traces his start in Newfoundland’s drama clubs, his early interest in musical theatre, and why he writes so many of his own libretti. We dig into years of education work at the Canadian Opera Company, where he wrote operas with seven-to-twelve-year-olds and built all the masks and props for them himself, turning limited budgets into creative fuel. His take on accessibility is refreshing – keep the craft sharp, the ideas bold, and the path clear enough that first-time listeners feel invited rather than tested.

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by the editor of Opera Canada, currently Michael Jones after Elizabeth Bowman hosted seasons 1 and 2. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.

A mountain hotel, a piano in the lounge, and two lovers who return in disguise with beards worthy of an NFB classic – Mozart has never felt more Canadian. We invited coloratura icon Tracy Dahl to share how a beloved trickster like Despina changes when the artist brings more life to the stage, and why comedy lands best when the ensemble breathes as one.

The stories are wild, but the craft is precise. Tracy takes us inside her infamous Lucia di Lammermoor night in San Francisco – an emergency call, costume chaos, a first step from her son, and a knock on the dressing room door from Joan Sutherland. She breaks down the mad scene’s E-flat, explaining why she chooses to ride the phrase in one breath rather than stop, and what that decision reveals about breath, line, and respecting your own instrument. We also revisit her unscheduled Met debut as Adele, where readiness, language clarity, and a sense of direction – literally – made all the difference.

Between performances, Tracy has helped turn Winnipeg into a vibrant hub for emerging singers. We talk about teaching that stays close to the industry, and then we head back to Così fan tutte in Vancouver: a witty staging set at a grand Canadian hotel, an onstage piano as continuo, local flavor woven through surtitles, and disguises that wink at national folklore. With a cast that feels like family, the rehearsal room becomes a masterclass in timing, listening and trust – the real fuel behind great Mozart ensembles.

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by the editor of Opera Canada, currently Michael Jones after Elizabeth Bowman hosted seasons 1 and 2. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.

A rising soprano, two audience prizes, and a leap into contemporary opera —this conversation brings you inside a young career. Opera Glasses down with Nikan Ingabire Kanate to map her path from Ottawa choir rehearsals to the Curtis Institute, then through a fall packed with finals, flights and a first-prize finish at the Center Stage competition hosted by the Canadian Opera Company.

We also open the score of Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone, where Nikon serves as the soprano voice tracing Simone Weil’s fierce, searching life. Nikon shares how she prepares for that challenge, why performing music by a woman composer feels important, and how the role expands her range as an artist.

Of course, the classics are never far. We talk about Kanate's competition repertoire – "Depuis le jour," "Porgi amor" – and her dream roles. There’s practical wisdom here for singers and fans alike: building rest into audition season, protecting the voice while traveling, finding community among finalists, and trusting technique when the moment arrives.

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by the editor of Opera Canada, currently Michael Jones after Elizabeth Bowman hosted seasons 1 and 2. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.

A revered classic can hide a hard truth. We sit down with director Mo Zhou to unpack how Madama Butterfly shifts when you move it out of fantasy and into the charged reality of post–World War II Japan.

Mo charts her own journey from closed doors in commercial theater to a thriving opera career, and then into the heart of a work she once refused to stage. By resetting the opera in 1946 and 1953, during and after the American occupation, she finds inspiration for why characters perform identity to survive, how power dynamics distort intimacy, and where Puccini’s score can be heard as evidence rather than ornament.

What stands out is the research and the reckoning. Mo traveled to Nagasaki, traced documented sources behind the Butterfly myth, and examined how original Asian women’s stories were reshaped by European adapters into familiar tropes – the self-effacing innocent (Cio Cio San) or the menacing “dragon lady" (Turandot). Her production asks us to see Cio-Cio-San as a person of faith and agency, not an exotic symbol: faith in reinvention, agency in the face of limited options, and a dream that collides with structural imbalance. The result is not a softened Butterfly but a sharper one, where history clarifies character and empathy doesn’t absolve harm.

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by the editor of Opera Canada, currently Michael Jones after Elizabeth Bowman hosted seasons 1 and 2. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.