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Choral Calendar (April 2026)

By Marie-Claire Fafard-Blais on 4 April 2026 Choral, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto

Montréal GERMAN WALTZES AND LATIN PSALMS April 11 at 7:30 p.m. – Maison symphonique For the 10th edition of Opus concerts, Chœur Métropolitain presents Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and Brahms’s Liebeslieder-Walzer and Neue Liebeslieder. Pianists Pierre McLean and Louise Pelletier will accompany the choir. www.orchestremetropolitain.com ARCHES: ARMENIA April 26 at 4 p.m. ; May 1, 2 and 9 at 7 p.m. – Various venues in Montreal Vocal ensemble Les Rugissants continues its Arches series exploring the history, music and architecture of important communities in Montreal. This series of concerts looks at the culture of Armenia with choral works by Sharafyan, Mansourian…

Editorial (April 2026)

By Wah Keung Chan on 3 April 2026 Arts Industry, Vocal

Happy spring! Welcome to the April/May 2026 national issue of La Scena Musicale, with a special focus on the voice! This issue also includes our annual guides to Canadian spring festivals, summer studies and choirs. Tenor Russell Thomas, who is making his debut in the title role of the Canadian Opera Company’s Werther, graces our English edition while our French cover features Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz as he debuts at Opera de Montréal as Don José in Carmen. As well, we meet Quebec soprano Elisabeth Boudreault who makes her Opéra de Québec debut as Musetta in La bohème, and groundbreaking…

Photo: Fay Fox

Russell Thomas: Taking the Werther Challenge

By Catherine Kustanczy on 3 April 2026 Interviews, Opera, Toronto, Vocal

Russell Thomas is many singers at once—and he aims to excel at them all. The Miami-born tenor, celebrated for his interpretations of Italian repertoire and, more recently, German works, is preparing to make his role debut in Toronto this spring as Werther in Jules Massenet’s popular opera of the same name, with the Canadian Opera Company (COC). Hailing the French opera’s “immense emotional impact,” Thomas says the work is a supreme marriage of music and text. “From the very beginning, when Werther walks in and sees the house and looks at the children playing, a whole world is being painted,…

Festival Classica 2026: Programming for Modern Tastes

By Justin Bernard on 3 April 2026 Contemporary, Musique populaire, Opera, Orchestral, Piano, Vocal

The 16th edition of Festival Classica, taking place from May 22 to June 14, will continue to extend its repertoire beyond the limits of classical music under the artistic direction of Marc Boucher. La Scena Musicale spoke to some of the leading artists involved in this year’s festival, including composer and arranger Simon Leclerc, whose new adaptation of Luc Plamondon and Richard Cocciante’s 1998 musical, Notre-Dame de Paris, will be unveiled on June 12. It will be one of three productions offered by Nouvel Opéra Métropolitain in addition to Les Grands classiques de Michel Legrand (June 6) and the opera…

Photo: Lena Kern

Arturo Chacón-Cruz: From “Cielito Lindo” To “Nessun Dorma”

By Adrian Rodriguez on 3 April 2026 Interviews, Montreal, Opera, Vocal

Francisco Araiza, Ramón Vargas, Rolando Villazón, Javier Camarena. For decades Mexico has produced an extraordinary lineage of lyric tenors who have conquered the world’s opera stages. And now, Arturo Chacón-Cruz. He has sung leading roles in more than 30 countries, appearing at major opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala and Vienna State Opera. Lately, he has been expanding into more dramatic repertoire with upcoming role debuts in Manon Lescaut and La fanciulla del West, two pinnacles of the verismo repertoire. His path to the international opera stage did not begin in a conservatory. It started with mariachi.…

Performing The Queen In Me. Photo: Dahlia Katz

Teiya Kasahara: Transforming Opera

By Hal Kowalewski on 3 April 2026 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Opera, Toronto, Vocal, West

Teiya Kasahara is best known as the creator-performer of The Queen In Me, which plays with the operatic canon to critique the exclusion of marginalized voices in the opera industry. Trained as a coloratura soprano, Kasahara came to prominence performing roles like The Magic Flute’s Queen of the Night. More recently, they have moved on to heavier, more dramatic repertoire including Madama Butterfly’s Cio-Cio San and the title role in Salome. In 2020, Kasahara went viral as the ‘Balcony Soprano’ who sang familiar repertoire from their Vancouver balcony. However, the categorization of soprano and the feminine roles that accompany it…

La Scena a tavola | Ravioli alla Toscana with Davide Bazzali

By Adrian Rodriguez on 3 April 2026 Art of Living, Interviews, Montreal, Opera, Recipes, Vocal

In this latest instalment of La Scena a tavola, we invite you to meet Montreal chef and opera enthusiast Davide Bazzali. As the owner of Restaurant Il Bazzali, in the heart of Little Italy, Bazzali embodies the Italian way of life, blending fine dining with a love of song. Born in northern Tuscany, he moved to Parma, the city of Giuseppe Verdi, at a very young age. Ironically, he didn’t discover opera in Italy, the home of opera, but in Montreal. For a while, Bazzali dreamed of joining Opéra de Montréal’s Atelier lyrique. Reality had other plans: having arrived in…

The Sound of Connection: How Access to Communication Care Changes Everything

By Speech-Language & Audiology Canada (SAC) on 3 April 2026 Vocal

For someone whose life is defined by music, losing the ability to hear the sweetness of a violin, the resonance of a piano chord or the expressive power of their own singing voice can be devastating. Sound is more than vibration, it is emotion, artistry, memory and connection. But long before music becomes art, there is something even more fundamental: communication. Communication is a basic human right. It is the foundation upon which relationships, learning and social participation are built. Yet, for many Canadians, this right is not fully accessible. Roughly one in 10 Canadians lives with communication challenges, affecting…

Jaws (1975), directed by Steven Spielberg Photo: Universal Pictures; John Williams Photo: Todd Rosenberg Photography

Music and Film | The Leitmotif: Music as Narrative in Opera and Film

By Flora Marie Angerer on 3 April 2026 Classical Music, Film, Movie soundtrack music, Opera, Orchestral, Vocal

On May 14, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal will perform the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, an opera in which certain musical ideas recur, subtly shaping the drama as it unfolds. These so-called leitmotifs, especially prominent in these excerpts, are associated with characters, emotions or dramatic concepts that reappear throughout the score. In Tristan and Isolde, these leitmotifs take many forms, ranging from the longing motif and the lovers’ call between Tristan and Isolde, to themes linked to individual characters such as Tristan or King Marke, as well as dramatic concepts such as the Daylight motif, which represents…

Left: Paige Robinson (Flora) in Opera 5's The Turn of the Screw, 2024; Right: Kate Fogg in Opera 5's Elegies, 2024. Photos: Emily Ding Photography

Opera 5’s Toronto Opera Festival: A Fresh, Canadian Triptych

By Emma Yee on 3 April 2026 Canadian Music, Classical Music, Contemporary, Opera, Toronto, Vocal

Puccini’s Il trittico (The Triptych) conjures up the image of three distinct tapestries, hung side by side. In their second annual Toronto Opera Festival, Opera 5 will imbue it with a fresh, new palette of colours, invigorating Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi with established artists and young talent for performances running June 3-7. In the place of the triptych’s Il tabarro the company presents the world premiere of Cecilia Livingston’s Parḗlios on June 12. Opera 5’s 2025 festival centred on the theme of grief, featuring Rachel Krehm and Ryan Trew’s Come Closer and William Finn’s Elegies. The current Canadian Opera Company…

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