CALENDAR of EVENTS

Director David Alden transports us into the darkly brooding world of Sir Walter Scott’s iconic Gothic novel. A fragile girl, barely a woman, is treated as little more than chattel within a brutal, power-driven society. She ultimately finds release – but only after severing all ties with reality, escaping into the dream world offered by Donizetti’s cascading romantic melodies. This brilliant production was created for, and stars, Anna Christy. “[Her] doll-like Lucia is all fey intensity, unaware of her sexual allure and pitched from the start at the edge of sanity. Her dazzlingly sketched coloratura in the mad scene is electrifying.” (The Daily Telegraph, U.K.)

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Adapted from Oscar Wilde’s play, the opera recounts the biblical story of Salome, who – to the horror of her stepfather Herod – demands the head of John the Baptist in return for performing the Dance of the Seven Veils. At the opera’s premiere, the audience and critics were shocked by its subject matter and erotic theme. Salome’s world of voyeurism and sexual abuse still elicits an equally visceral response today: “…this Salome is marvelously wicked and wickedly marvelous, which has always been the point of the work – both Oscar Wilde’s play and Richard Strauss’s operatic adaptation.” (The Globe and Mail)

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Francis Poulenc wrote some of his most haunting music for this story of an order of Carmelite nuns caught up in the turmoil and terror of the French Revolution. After Carsen’s triumphant COC productions of Orfeo ed Euridice and Iphigenia in Tauris, the Toronto Sun declared that “Robert Carsen’s genius knows no bounds.” He returns to Toronto to direct a cast of 150 performers led by beloved Canadian stars Isabel Bayrakdarian, Judith Forst and Adrianne Pieczonka in a production described by Variety as “subtle, yet gut-wrenching.”

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The best of Canadian dance featuring a range of new companies and returning favorites. In its seventh year, the series remains unparalleled and provides Toronto’s dance community with the opportunity to reflect the diversity of their broad international backgrounds and influences. This season will highlight flamenco, contemporary, Indigenous, Afro-Caribbean and hip hop dance. Performances take place at the Fleck Dance Theatre, located on the 3rd floor of Queen’s Quay Terminal, 207 Queens Quay West; the Enwave Theatre, 231 Queens Quay West and the Studio Theatre, York Quay Centre, 235 Queens Quay West. Complete information about single tickets, packages and group rates are available through Harbourfront Centre’s Box Office by phone at 416-973-4000, or by visiting harbourfrontcentre.com/nextsteps.

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World Stage brings you the best in contemporary live performance. This season welcomes productions and artists from Canada, Germany, Côte d’Ivoire, Brazil, Australia, China, Norway, Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands, offering visions both thoughtful and whimsical, boisterous and serene, chilling and fearless. In other words, our human experience. Performances take place at the Studio Theatre, located at 235 Queens Quay West, the Fleck Dance Theatre located on the 3rd floor of the Queen’s Quay Terminal, 207 Queens Quay West and the Enwave Theatre located at 231 Queens Quay West. Complete information about single tickets, packages, Flex Passes, students/youth/seniors and arts industry professionals is available at the Harbourfront Centre Box Office, by calling 416-973-4000, or by visiting harbourfrontcentre.com/worldstage

www.harbourfrontcentre.com/worldstage

Featuring three exhibitions, Kiugak Ashoona: Stories and Imaginings from Cape Dorset; Whales’ Tails and Other Tales: Cape Dorset’s Pudlat Family; and Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Identity in Contemporary Cape Dorset Art. January 26, 2013 to June 16, 2013. Together, these three distinct exhibitions bring into light the rich artistic community of Cape Dorset (Kinngait) in the northern territory of Nunavut and its prolific contribution to the documentation of Inuit life and traditions that span over half a century. As the only community in Canada whose main work force is connected to the arts, Cape Dorset’s creative energies attest to the importance of art-making as an economic base of survival and growth as well as the development and preservation of its culture. Kiugak Ashoona is organized by the Winnipeg Art Gallery and consists of nearly fifty works on paper and sculptures in this solo exhibition that brings much deserved recognition to one of the few remaining “Early Masters” in Inuit art. The exhibition Whales’ Tails and Other Tales consists of works by the Pudlat family who have left a rich artistic legacy—thousands of drawings and hundreds of prints exploring the many facets of their community life. The third exhibition, curated by Sharona Adamowicz-Clements at the McMichael, highlights the works of leading contemporary Cape Dorset artists who have made huge strides not only in the development of Inuit art, but Canadian art at large.

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On Saturday, November 3, 2012, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) unveils BIG, the newest installation in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume on Level 4 in the Museum’s Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. A stunning display, BIG is exclusively drawn from the ROM’s collection of nearly 50,000 textiles and costumes. Showcasing 40 artifacts from around the world, this unique exhibition includes objects assuming their BIG status in a myriad of ways. With some objects publicly displayed for the first time, the installation offers a fresh, new way of exploring the ROM’s renowned collections. BIG continues until Fall 2013.

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