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Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Magic Flute to open Vancouver Opera’s 2023-2024 season

The season will also include mainstage productions of Don Pasquale and Carmen. 

Mozart’s The Magic Flute will open Vancouver Opera’s three-show 2023-2024 season, which will also include Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Bizet’s Carmen.

We are excited to present an incredible season of opera classics to expose our great art form to new audiences. – Tom Wright

“We are excited to present an incredible season of opera classics to expose our great art form to new audiences,” says Vancouver Opera’s general director Tom Wright. “Two of the operas have not been seen in over a decade and one has only been produced once in our 64-year history.”

Opening the 2023–2024 season in October is The Magic Flute, Mozart’s fairytale within a fairytale following the adventures of Prince Tamino and the bird-catcher Papageno, who are sent on a quest by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter, Pamina, from the clutches of the evil Sarastro. As they journey through the trials and tribulations of the quest, they encounter various obstacles, including a series of tests that they must pass to prove their worthiness. Along the way, they are aided by magical instruments, including a magic flute and a set of magic bells, which help them overcome the challenges.

In February 2024, Vancouver Opera presents an all-Canadian production of Donizetti’s comic opera Don Pasquale. Set in Rome in the mid-19th century, the story follows the wealthy and aging Don Pasquale, who wants to marry to produce an heir and disinherit his disobedient nephew, Ernesto, who is in love with Norina. Don Pasquale’s friend, Dr. Malatesta, hatches a plot to teach Don Pasquale a lesson by disguising Norina as his sister and arranging a fake marriage to Don Pasquale.

Closing out the season in April & May of 2024 is one of the most widely performed works in operatic history, Georges Bizet’s Carmen. The story follows the fiery and independent Carmen, a beautiful and seductive gypsy who works in a cigarette factory. She becomes involved with the soldier Don José, who falls deeply in love with her, but their tumultuous relationship soon spirals out of control.

“Together, the storybook enchantment of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, a vivid pop art reimagining of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, and the fiery passion of Bizet’s Carmen make for a season of grand scale, dazzlingly immersive experiences,” adds Wright.

Vancouver Opera will also present the return of Opera in the Park in July, a free, family-friendly event at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby, as well as the world premiere of Sanctuary & Storm, an imagined debate between the two most powerful women in Medieval Europe, Hildegard of Bingen and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of the Normans.

Vancouver Opera will also continue its community engagement with Vancouver Opera in Schools, bringing fully-staged operas to children and families throughout British Columbia.

Starting in spring 2024, Vancouver Opera and Pacific Opera Victoria will remount their co-production of The Flight of the Hummingbird, resuming a school tour across the province.  The opera is based on an Indigenous parable from the Quechuan people of South America and influenced by the graphic novel written by Haida artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas.

Single tickets go on sale on July 12, 2023. Subscribers have until June 9, 2023, to renew their subscription for the 2023-2024 season. For more information about the 2023–2024 Vancouver Opera season, visit vancouveropera.ca.

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