A summer opera workout

Another summer – another highlight season for the Halifax Summer Opera Workshop.

The Halifax Summer Opera Workshop just wrapped its summer 2012 lineup, featuring three different productions: Bizet’s Carmen, Bejamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a selection of four one-act operas. The workshop has been offering up choice opera performances since 2005, when it was founded by Nina Scott-Stoddart and Tara Scott to provide opera opportunities ('opera'-tunities?) for performers in the Maritimes.

“We saw the need for a place… to learn and perform at home,” Ms. Scott-Stoddart explains. “We started with nine people, two master classes. This year we’ve had about 66 people and ten master classes . . . it’s become a very popular program. One of the most popular programs in Canada.” Although HSOW has grown in size, Ms. Scott-Stoddart is still careful to steer with a steady hand: “I do all the programming and I do all the casting. It’s really my baby.”

HSOW’s 2012 shows are all performed at Dalhousie, in either the James Dunn Theatre or the David Mack. Murray Theatre. But that’s not the company’s only connection to the university. “I was the guest stage director for the Dalhousie Opera Workshop for three or four years,” Ms. Scott-Stoddart explains. Additionally, performers Meghan Jamieson and Mike Hart are studying music at Dalhousie; costume designer Nicole Dowdall is a Dalhousie student; and stage manager Tessa Pekeles and HSOW choreographer / director Andrew Pelrine are both Dal graduates. 

Prestigious as the workshop is, it’s an incredibly intense workload, both for performers and those behind the scenes. “Everyone on both sides… shows up with all their work done, day one,” Ms. Scott-Stoddart reveals. “We block everything in four days, and then we have a week of work-throughs and runs… it is lightning fast.”

The summer workshop lasts about four weeks total, but the space from the first rehearsal to the first performance is under three weeks, so performers learn fast by necessity. “I can remember being a younger singer and being not as prepared as I ought to,” Ms. Scott-Stoddart reminisces. “You only do that once!”