Inside Vancouver Opera

Vancouver Opera
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Inside Vancouver Opera is a unique backstage glimpse into the world of Vancouver Opera. Join us as we chat with opera experts, artists, Vancouver Opera staff and others to explore the world of opera on and off the stage. This podcast offers an insider’s glimpse into the artistry, experiences, and perspectives of the talent involved in taking breathtaking opera productions from the page to the stage. Find out more at VancouverOpera.ca

  1. 6 Sept

    Jean Orr & Joshua Beamish: Canada's First Giselle

    In February 1948, an eighteen-year-old Jean Orr danced Giselle in Ottawa — the first full production this country had ever seen, with a full orchestra in the pit. She went on to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and decades later became a founder and the first president of Ballet BC. Ashley Daniel Foot sat down with her in her West Vancouver living room, alongside Joshua Beamish, who has just founded Ballet Vancouver and opens its first season this month. Jean describes choosing to die by the sword rather than of a heart attack, because at eighteen she wanted to die dramatically. She remembers touring Nova Scotia with no backdrop and running around the outside of the theatre mid-performance. And she explains, almost in passing, the night she put her mortgage-free house up as collateral so a choreographer would be paid and the show could go on. Josh had never heard any of it. You can hear him find out. Ballet Vancouver's Balanchine's Apollo & Other Works plays the Vancouver Playhouse September 11 and 12, with pre-show talks before all three performances. The season closes with @giselle, May 13–15, 2027. balletvancouver.com Chapters 00:00 — Two people, forty years apart01:04 — Highland dancing on the prairies01:34 — A land grant, a motorcycle, and the Qu'Appelle Valley02:04 — "My absolute lifesaver of life"03:00 — Josh starts tap dancing at two04:00 — Nesta Toumine and the Ballets Russes04:47 — Ottawa, February 194806:35 — Nobody called it the first — until Toronto did07:16 — "I wanted to die dramatically"08:49 — Josh hears the story for the first time10:33 — Winnipeg, no bus fare, and Pincher Creek12:54 — Building Ballet BC with David Y. H. Lui14:30 — The car raffle, and the house16:12 — The 2026 equivalent17:13 — Is dance the most fragile art?17:45 — Balanchine's Apollo, and Heather Ogden comes home19:08 — Seventy-eight years apartGuestsJean Orr — dancer; founder and first president of Ballet BCJoshua Beamish — choreographer; founder and Artistic Director, Ballet Vancouver

    Jean Orr & Joshua Beamish: Canada's First Giselle

  2. 28 Aug

    The Hidden Art of Stage Management

    Stage Manager Theresa Tsang celebrates 30 seasons with Vancouver Opera. Every performance you have ever seen at Vancouver Opera, every blackout, every curtain, every entrance, every burst of light exactly on the downbeat happened because one voice on a headset in the dark said a single word, ‘go.’ She says it hundreds of times a night. She has said it for 30 seasons across almost 100 productions. The orchestra follows the conductor, everyone else in the building follows her. Today we are joined by Stage Manager, Theresa Tsang. Full Article Episode Credits: Theresa Sang - Stage Manager, Vancouver Opera Ashley Daniel Foot - Host & Creator, Inside Vancouver Opera Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

    The Hidden Art of Stage Management

  3. 17 Aug

    Stanis Smith: The Mother Art

    Stanis Smith has spent his career designing the spaces people move through — airports, terminals, thresholds. This September, he becomes Board Chair of Vancouver Opera. He's also a clarinettist who self-produced a chamber music album of Brahms and Nino Rota. He's the person who will tell you, with complete conviction, that Frank Lloyd Wright was wrong: the mother art isn't architecture. It's opera. In this episode, Ash Foot sits down with Stanis to talk about standing-room tickets at Covent Garden, what it takes to convert a first-time opera-goer into a lifelong addict, and why he built a 50-piece art program into the bones of the new $4.2 billion Terminal 6 at JFK. They also discuss Vancouver Opera's upcoming season, the state of the art form in 2026, and the Vancouver Cultural Precinct — an initiative that could transform the city's performing arts landscape within a decade. A conversation about art, architecture, and what happens when someone walks into a room and feels something they weren't expecting.

    Stanis Smith: The Mother Art

  4. 9 May

    Jonelle Sills & Her Mother Desiree | A Mother's Day Conversation

    Soprano Jonelle Sills came into the world already steeped in music — her mother Desiree sang through her entire pregnancy. In this Mother's Day conversation, the two of them sit down together for the first time to talk about gospel choirs and opera stages, about coming to Canada with nothing, about the voice Jonelle wanted to keep only for herself, and about what it means to watch someone you love become who they were always going to be. Bring a tissue.

    Jonelle Sills & Her Mother Desiree | A Mother's Day Conversation

  5. 30 Apr

    The Man Who's Sung Opera 168 Times

    Today we're joined by a legendary member of the Vancouver Opera Chorus, Don Wright. We discuss his family's legacy, the life of a chorus singer, the importance of opera in education, and memorable moments from a lifetime in the art form. Full Article Episode Credits: Don Wright - Chorister, Vancouver Opera Chorus Ashley Daniel Foot - Host & Creator, Inside Vancouver Opera Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

    The Man Who's Sung Opera 168 Times

  6. 25 Apr

    The Woman Puccini Erased So You'd Cry Harder

    Mimì is one of opera's most beloved heroines. Gentle. Luminous. Dying beautifully in a Parisian garret while the orchestra swells around her. She was also, in Henri Murger's source novel, a fickle, materialistic flirt her lover described as being "wedded to a thunderstorm." A gadabout. Complicated. Inconvenient. Not particularly easy to mourn. Puccini made a decision. You've been feeling the consequences ever since. In this episode, host Ashley Daniel Foot sits down with Vancouver Opera's researcher and editor Jane Potter — the creative force behind our composer series for the past three years — to pull apart the opera everyone thinks they know. They cover the missing act that explains Rodolfo's jealous rage. The real woman Puccini erased to create his heroine. The two source characters — Francine and Mademoiselle Mimì — whose DNA got merged into the figure we recognize. The Viscount nobody talks about. They also go deep on Kevin Ng's essay Beautiful Deaths: How La Bohème Transformed Tuberculosis into Art — tracking how consumption went from epidemic catastrophe to aristocratic beauty standard, from Lord Byron to Rent to Moulin Rouge!, and how Puccini wrote the disease's physical reality directly into the music itself. Plus: the 1896 premiere critics who called it "a momentary error" and suggested Puccini return to the straight road before further damage was done. The audience that sold out 24 performances that same month. And Benjamin Britten, who in 1951 delivered the greatest backhanded opera critique of the 20th century. La Bohème runs April 25 through May 3 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets at vancouveropera.ca. Kevin Ng's essay Beautiful Deaths is available now on the Inside Vancouver Opera Substack.

    The Woman Puccini Erased So You'd Cry Harder

  7. 20 Apr

    Jonathan Darlington: What Happens Before the Downbeat

    Maestro Jonathan Darlington on Puccini, broken batons, being mistaken for Richard Gere in Italian lifts, and why La Bohème will undo you — every time. Jonathan Darlington led Vancouver Opera for nearly twenty years. He's since conducted at the Vienna State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Royal Swedish Opera, and the Nürnberger Symphoniker, where he's now Chief Conductor. He lives in Paris — ten minutes from the neighbourhood where La Bohème is actually set. And he keeps coming back to Vancouver. This week he's back in the pit at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for La Bohème — Puccini's love story about young artists in Paris trying to stay warm, fall in love, and stay alive. It's the fastest-selling production in Vancouver Opera's sixty-six year history. In this conversation, Ashley Daniel Foot asks Darlington what's actually going through his mind in the sixteen bars before the curtain rises, how the streets of Vancouver have changed the way he hears Puccini, why he still wants to conduct one specific opera just to erase a humiliation from thirty years ago, and what it felt like to open Sweeney Todd surrounded by a large metal contraption on stage while trying to frighten the audience — a task made easier, he admits, by the fact that he was already terrified himself. Plus: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Carlos Kleiber, Mirella Freni, four piccolos playing fortissimo, a Vancouver harpsichord builder who makes his batons by hand, and the pre-show meal of champions. La Bohème runs April 25 to May 3 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets at vancouveropera.ca.

    Jonathan Darlington: What Happens Before the Downbeat

  8. 30 Mar

    The Instrument That Never Stops Ringing

    Today we are joined by the Vancouver Opera Orchestra's Principal Harpist, Janelle Nadeau. In this episode we explore the versatile and ancient art of the harp, Janelle's journey with the instrument, and the unique beauty of live performance. Full Article Episode Credits: Janelle Nadeau - Principal Harpist, Vancouver Opera Orchestra Ashley Daniel Foot - Host & Creator, Inside Vancouver Opera Mack McGillivray - Producer, Inside Vancouver Opera

    The Instrument That Never Stops Ringing
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About

Inside Vancouver Opera is a unique backstage glimpse into the world of Vancouver Opera. Join us as we chat with opera experts, artists, Vancouver Opera staff and others to explore the world of opera on and off the stage. This podcast offers an insider’s glimpse into the artistry, experiences, and perspectives of the talent involved in taking breathtaking opera productions from the page to the stage. Find out more at VancouverOpera.ca

Information

  • Creator
    Vancouver Opera
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    114
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Vancouver Opera
  • Show Website
    Inside Vancouver Opera