National Opera Intensive

With U of T Opera Michael Albano has directed over 40 productions and has developed a graduate course in operatic composition. Michael Albano has directed at: New York City Opera, Yale School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, COC. Selected Directorial credits include: Il barbiere di Siviglia, Le Comte Ory, Le nozze di Figaro, L’elisir d’amore, La belle Hélène, La Traviata, The Gondoliers, Die Fledermaus, La Bohème, Gianni Schicchi, Swoon, Così fan tutte, L’Enfant prodigue, Paul Bunyan.

Selected original libretti include: The Machine Stops; Footsteps in Campbell House; Rob Ford, the Opera; The Last Duel; The Very Last Green Thing; A Dickens of a Christmas; Laura’s Cow, the Legend of Laura Secord; Alice in Wonderland. Currently working on Fall River, the legend of Lizzie Borden.

Joel Ivany is the Founder and Artistic Director of AtG, is the artistic director of Opera at Banff Centre and was recently appointed Artistic Director at Edmonton Opera. His directing credits include productions of Verdi’s Macbeth (Minnesota Opera), Carmen (Vancouver Opera), Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Edmonton Opera), Gavin Bryars’ Marilyn Forever (Adelaide Festival) and Le nozze di Figaro (revival at Norwegian National Opera). He is the author of seven (and counting) original librettos for companies such as the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company. He is a multiple Dora Mavor Moore Award nominee for Outstanding Direction as well as for Outstanding New Opera/Musical, winning one for Figaro’s Wedding. Recent mainstage directing credits include Dead Man Walking at Minnesota Opera and the multiple award-winning production of Gluck’s Orphée⁺ with Opera Columbus, AtG and Banff Centre. He has directed productions for the Canadian Opera Company (Hänsel und Gretel, Carmen), Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Mozart’s Requiem, Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins), the Canadian Children’s Opera Company (Brundibár), Vancouver Opera (Carmen, Dead Man Walking), and Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus (AtG and Banff Centre). Recent highlights include Messiah/Complex (AtG) and directing the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. He is a proud graduate of the Opera School at U of T and is a member of the Alumni Wall of Fame at his alma mater, Western University.

BMus (WLU), MMus (NEC), COC Ensemble Studio. UofT conducting credits: L’elisir d’amore, La voix Humaine, Les Mamelles de Tiresias, Hansel and Gretel, L’Enfant et les sortilèges, L’Heure espangnol, Taptoo!, HMS Pinafore, Don Pasquale, Paul Bunyan. Chorus Master at COC since 1998; Audition Consultant for Opera Theatre of St Louis; frequent judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Recognized by Wilfrid Laurier University as “100 Alumni of Achievement”. Formerly chorus master of Opera Theatre of St Louis and Edmonton Opera and vocal coach/repetiteur at Juilliard Opera Center, Chautauqua Institute School of Singing, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Saskatchewan, Opera Ontario, Banff Centre for the Arts. Heard as the host of CBC Radio’s “This is My Music” and in recital on CBC and WGBH Radio in New England.