Vancouver Opera will host Richard Bonynge! To conduct Norma! As part of its 2009/10 Golden Anniversary season, where the VO looks back on 50 years of performances, the Australian conductor saddles up the podium with a delicious, refreshing Bellini. Norma opens on Saturday, November 28, and breaks a 20-year stretch when it was last heard by the VO audiences. Bonynge conducted Norma for the VO 46 years ago in 1963, with Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne filling-out the cast (his first performance with the VO was Faust from earlier that same year) and led as the VO's Artistic Director during the 1970s.
This time, the Tazewell Thompson production boasts Armenian soprano Hasmik Papian as Norma, Canadian tenor Richard Margison as Pollione (hopefully recovered from his NYC cooties), and American mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich as Adalgisa (who stunned the Italian audiences Teatro Comunale di Bologna, OC included, where she appeared alongside Daniela Dessì & Fabio Armiliato). The Golden Anniversary season also offers Nixon in China, The Marriage of Figaro, and Madama Butterfly.
If you can't wait for opening night, Bonynge will be reminiscing live at the Vancouver Public Library on Monday, November 9 in a free, public forum.