Siren Song
July 16 and 19 at 7:30 p.m. — July 18 at 2:00 p.m.
Rolston Recital Hall, The Banff Centre
Tickets: Adult $25 · Student/Senior $23 · Child $13
Box Office: 403.762.6301 or 1.800.413.8368
Presented as part of the 2009 Banff Summer Arts Festival
“A gem of a piece from a composer who rarely puts a foot wrong in the opera house.”
— BBC Music
British composer Jonathan Dove has built an international reputation breaking every convention in the opera rule book. He attracts audiences who can’t distinguish Puccini from Wagner by staging operas in shopping malls and airports, telling stories pulled directly from news headlines. Dove brings his inventive chamber opera Siren Song to play at The Banff Centre July 16 to 19 as part of the 2009 Banff Summer Arts Festival.
Created in 1994 with a libretto by Nick Dear, the opera tells the bizarre true story of a love-starved sailor who falls in love with a woman through a lonely hearts ad. They correspond through letters, and eventually he opens a joint bank account for her, losing his heart and his shirt in the process.
Dove’s unconventional style has been convincing skeptics around the world that opera is not an outdated art form. His best-known work, Flight, is set in an airport. His 2002 TV opera When she died… about the fifth anniversary of the death of Princess Diana was broadcast on television to an audience of close to a million U.K. viewers. Dove is also known for incorporating British traditions of community theatre by making plays out of reminiscence material, and performing local stories with members of the community.
During his Jarislowsky Master Artist residency at the Centre, Dove is developing new work including an operatic retelling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, designed to be performed in a stately home. Dove is also mentoring the participants of the Opera as Theatre program, who will be performing Siren Song. The program offers emerging and established professional singers a unique opportunity to work with international master coaches and mentors from the worlds of opera and theatre to concentrate on the interpretive dramatic arts, while at the same time enhance their musical knowledge and skills with a variety of performance opportunities. Opera performances during the 2009 Banff Summer Arts Festival will also include Peter Brook’s version of La Tragédie de Carmen (July 31 to August 9) and Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen (August 6 to 9), with a new libretto by John Murrell.
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- More information about Opera at The Banff Centre.
- More information about the 2009 Banff Summer Arts Festival.
