DVBIA Perch Program – July 12th Outdoor Concert
Please join us at Cathedral Square for a special concert of opera favourites! This summer, Opera Opulenza has joined the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association’s outdoor Perch Program. We’ll be performing once each month throughout the summer at lunchtimes, alternating between Lot 19 and Cathedral Square. Each show will be different from the last. Watch this space for details of shows to come.
Guest singers are Sunny Shams, tenor, and Shadan Saul, soprano with piano accompaniment by Roger Parton
Friday, July 12th
12pm to 1:30pm
Cathedral Square – 566 Richards St, Vancouver
Free admission!
Salon Social with Sunny Shams – July 14th – Sold out!
Tenor Sunny Shams will be our next guest singer at the Fieldhouse for our 5th Salon Social with accompaniment by pianist Roger Parton.
Acclaimed for his sensational interpretation as lead in the world premiere of Stickboy with Vancouver Opera, Sunny Shams is known for his beautiful, rich, velvety and expressive tenor voice, and his dramatic connection with the characters whom he portrays on stage. After experiencing singing in the chorus for a season with Pacific Opera Victoria, Sunny was convinced that it is the ultimate art form and set out on his operatic career which has seen him around the world working with teachers such as Peter Barcza, Heather Thompson, Virginia Zeani, Montserrat Caballé, Daniel Okulitch, and with his late mentor, tenor Melvyn Poll.
Sunny’s career has given him the opportunity to perform in many concerts singing arias and ensembles, symphonic works such as Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Handel’s Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah, as well as portraying many lead roles in operas including Carmen, La Bohème, Don Giovanni, Falstaff, Die Fledermaus, Die Lustige Witwe, and Rusalka, in Vancouver, Seattle, Montreal, Madrid and touring in the Czech Republic. Sunny recently debuted as the title role in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Opera Opulenza in Vancouver, and reprised the role of the Prince in Rusalka in a concert production in Vancouver with acclaimed coach and pianist Luke Housner from the prestigious Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia.
Free admission, snacks, and tea. SOLD OUT!
Sunday, July 14th
1pm – 2:30pm
Oak Park Fieldhouse
Email: operaopulenza@gmail.com
Children’s Sing-along and Intro to Opera – July 17th
Opera Opulenza will introduce opera to the youngest of audience members through costumed performances of opera favourites, musical games, fun vocal warm-ups, and a children’s sing-along. Children will be encouraged to move, dance, and sing along. Sopranos Trudy Chalmers and Katie McCullough, mezzo Nadine Cornelius, and pianist Roger Parton.
Marpole Neighbourhood House
8585 Hudson St at 70th Ave, Vancouver
Wednesday, July 17
3 pm – 5pm
Free!
Breathe, Move, Sing!
A series of 3 free workshops on breath, relaxation, movement, and voice. Unlock tension in the body, become aware of your breathing patterns, move and explore the space around you, follow your impulses, build confidence, and free your voice. This class is open to all ages. We will be working on vocalization – speaking, humming, singing. Wear comfortable clothing as we’ll be moving about the room.
Marpole Neighbourhood House
8585 Hudson St at 70th Ave, Vancouver
July 24, August 7, and August 21
3 pm – 5 pm
Free!
Opera Summer Camp for Kids – August 1st!
Opera Opulenza will be leading a one-day opera camp for kids at the Moberly Arts Centre as part of the City of Vancouver’s Creative Remix Summer Camp Program. This program is now sold out!
Salon Social with Soprano Tamar Simon – August 25th!
Soprano Tamar Simon will be our next guest singer at the Fieldhouse for our 6th Salon Social with accompaniment by pianist Roger Parton.
Heralded for her “clear vibrant tone” (Opera Canada), Tamar Simon is an emerging Armenian-Canadian soprano embarking on a promising opera career. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Tamar was recently engaged with the Vancouver Opera Festival as the soprano soloist for their New Works Project. She also has sung with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as Valencienne in their Look of Love concert and with White Rock Concerts as Musetta in their production of La Bohème. In 2018, she also performed the role of Rosina in Burnaby Lyric Opera’s mainstage production of Il barbiere di Siviglia.
Tamar has also performed internationally, most recently as Zerlina in Hawaii Performing Arts Festival’s 2017 production of Don Giovanni. In 2016, Tamar continued her vocal and art song studies in Austria after receiving the Johann Strauss Foundation Scholarship, which sponsored study at the Internationale Sommerakademie Mozarteum under soprano Helen Donath and baritone Wolfgang Holzmair. Earlier that year, she traveled to Pilzen, Czech Republic and Nürnberg, Germany performing excerpts from La Bohème and Die Fledermaus
Tamar was a District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2016. She is a graduate of University of British Columbia’s Master of Music program in opera performance, studying under Patrick Raftery and Nancy Hermiston. At UBC, she performed many leading roles, most notably the role of Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro where she was described as “believable and engaging Susanna, passing from innocence to subtlety to assertion, always in control and always the unrecognized protagonist” (Opera Canada). She was also seen as Tytania in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ciboletta in Eine Nacht in Venedig, and The Foreign Woman in The Consul.
Free admission, snacks, and tea. Please email to reserve a seat: operaopulenza@gmail.com.
Sunday, August 25th
2pm – 3:30pm
Oak Park Fieldhouse
Email: operaopulenza@gmail.com
DVBIA Perch Program – August 29 Outdoor Concert
Please join us at Lot 19 for a special concert of opera favourites! This summer, Opera Opulenza has joined the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association’s outdoor Perch Program. We’ll be performing once each month throughout the summer at lunchtimes, alternating between Lot 19 and Cathedral Square. Each show will be different from the last. Watch this space for details of shows to come.
Guest singers are Mark Pepe, tenor, and Katie McCullough, soprano, Janessa Shae O’Hearn, mezzo, with piano accompaniment by Roger Parton
Thursday, August 29
12pm to 1:30pm
Lot 19 at 855 Hastings St, Vancouver
Free admission!
Salon Social with Baritone Geoff Schellenberg – September 22!
Baritone Geoff Schellenberg will be our next guest singer at the Fieldhouse for our 7th Salon Social with accompaniment by pianist Roger Parton.
Praised for his “clarion tone” (Musical Toronto) and “impressive vocal colour” (Opera Canada), Canadian-American baritone Geoffrey Schellenberg is currently a Resident Artist with Portland Opera. In the 2018-19 season, he performed the roles of Marchese D’Obigny in La traviata, Fiorello in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and Nardo in La finta giardiniera with Portland Opera, as well as Schaunard in La bohème with Vancouver Opera. He was engaged with Calgary Opera for their 2017-18 season as part of their Emerging Artist Development Program, performing as the Sergeant in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Captain in Eugene Onegin, and Sciarrone in Tosca in their mainstage productions. He also recently sang Morales in Carmen (Opera Kelowna), Marcello in La bohème (White Rock Concerts), and Belcore in L’elisir d’amore (Music Academy of the West). In the 2019-20 season, he will perform as Harlekin in Highland Opera Studio’s production of Ariadne auf Naxos, Amantio in Pacific Opera Victoria’s production of Il trittico, and will return to Portland Opera to perform as Ben, David, and Doctor Gregg in An American Quartet and as Charlie in Three Decembers. Bio continues click here.
Free admission, snacks, and tea. Please email to reserve a seat: operaopulenza@gmail.com.
Sunday, September 22
2pm – 3:30pm
Oak Park Fieldhouse
Email: operaopulenza@gmail.com
DVBIA Perch Program – September 30th Outdoor Concert
Please join us at Cathedral Square for a special concert of opera favourites! This summer, Opera Opulenza has joined the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association’s outdoor Perch Program. We’ll be performing once each month throughout the summer at lunchtimes, alternating between Lot 19 and Cathedral Square. Each show will be different from the last. Watch this space for details of shows to come.
Guest singers are Tamar Simon, soprano, Andy Greenwood, baritone, TBA, tenor, TBA, mezzo, and the Opulenza Community Opera Chorus with piano accompaniment by Roger Parton
Monday, September 30th
12pm to 1:30pm
Cathedral Square – 566 Richards St, Vancouver
Free admission!
On-going
Community Opera Chorus
Saturdays 11am-12pm at the Oak Park Fieldhouse
Come join our Community Opera Chorus! There’s no experience necessary and no membership fee. We are building a chorus from the ground up! We will help you with group breathing and singing exercises, movement and score reading. It’s like choir, but eventually you’ll be in costume and acting as well as singing! If you love to sing and to be part of a group come join us! Saturdays 11am-12pm at the Oak Park Fieldhouse on Fremlin Street. To register email: operaopulenza@gmail.com with “Community Opera Chorus” in the subject line. We will be working on repertoire from “The Tales of Hoffmann”, “Rigoletto”, “Don Carlo”, “Tosca”, and “Carmen”.
