A Brief History of Opera at Banff Centre
In 1949, senator Donald Cameron hired Ernesto Vinci of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto to teach singing in Banff, which attracted 28 students, an unexpectedly high number that surprised and pleased them both. That same year, Richard Eaton from the University of Alberta music faculty came on board to help the struggling choral program. He brought with him a whole new group of singers to Banff.
For the next three years, Vinci conducted master classes and Eaton choral concerts until 1952, when it was decided a full-length opera production would be mounted – Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, a Canadian premiere. Leona Patterson of the Drama Department directed the production, while Clayton Hare’s string students provided the orchestra. The following year Eillen Higgin joined them as the operatic coach. Until this time, Higgins was the leading light of the musical world in Calgary and formed and sustained a group known as the Calgary Theatre Singers. It was she who had been prodding Cameron to bring opera to Banff.
Vinci continued to run the highly successful opera program until his retirement in 1968, when he was presented with an honorary degree from the University of Calgary. One of Vinci’s protégés, Jim Craig, ran the opera program for the next two years, followed by Bernard Turgeon, who had been a student in Banff during the '50s. He attracted Marie-Thérèse Paquin, the grande dame of opera in Montreal, who came to Banff as an operatic coach and accompanist. She was a strong personality at the school and opera’s greatest advocate over the next decade.
Alexander Gray took over in 1979 and brought in Leon Major, Walter Ducloux and Boris Goldovsky as summer faculty. With these hugely respected artists, opera in Banff had hit the big time. They produced Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring and critics agreed it was one of Banff Centre’s finest productions.
Stretching into the late '80s, eminent director Colin Graham attracted the highest level of Canadian singers to Banff, many of whom returned as faculty, including the notable Richard Margison, Ben Heppner, Michael Schade, and Tracy Dahl, who began in Banff Centre's Musical Theatre program. During this time, three to four operas were being produced in Banff every year, becoming the highlight of the Banff Summer Arts Festival. The '90s began with the famous Mozart operas The Marriage of Figaro and CosÏ fan tutte, directed by Colin Graham with set and costume design by Susan Benson. During the mid-to-late '90s, director Keith Turnbull took a modern approach, as all productions were 20th Century opera: The Rake’s Progress, Kafka’s Chimp, Jackie O, and the Canadian premiere of Zurich.
In 2001 the opera program went on hiatus, and came back as Opera as Theatre, as envisioned by Theatre Arts artistic director John Murrell and under the artistic leadership of Glynis Leyshon. In 2005 Kelly Robinson became the program director and directed most of Banff Centre's opera productions until 2014. These included the premieres of two original Canadian operas—Filumena and Frobisher—and Banff Centre's 75th Anniversary tribute performances of Dido and Aeneas to Vinci, Cameron, and the pioneers of opera in Banff.
In 2014 Joel Ivany became the program director for opera under the unique collaboration between Banff Centre, the Canadian Opera Company and Against the Grain Theatre. Performances were taken outside of the theatre and placed in new spaces and presented in new ways. Through this alternative way of presentation, opera at Banff Centre continues to redefine and reimagine opera for a 21st Century audience.
