The Gown of your Choice?

Like most of you, I await tonight's fashion parade down the red carpet with much anticipation. It must be a heady day for the Academy Award nominees as they get ready to look their best, especially for the lucky ones wearing custom designed gowns.

David McCaffrey and Wallis Guinta
 Photo by MIV Photography, 2011.

Being a huge fan of formal wear myself (was I born in the wrong century?), I have to say that I think that having a gown designed for me would be the ultimate fantasy.  But for Wallis Giunta, a mezzo-soprano from the Canadian Opera Company, custom designed gowns are just another part of her job. This artist, who has charmed critics with her "creamy voice and charismatic stage presence" was invited to join the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and will make her NYC recital debut in March in a program titled Spanish Gold: Songs of the Iberian Peninsula. She will be wearing a gown  of "flame coloured raw silk with black ruffles in the back, and an off-the-shoulder bustier top" designed by noted Canadian designer McCaffrey Haute Couture.

This collaboration between artist and designer was forged last October when McCaffrey offered to loan Giunta dresses for her upcoming recitals. Soon thereafter, Giunta sang with indie rock celebrities Broken Social Scene at the Canadian Opera Company's fundraising gala Operanation VII while wearing a voluminous white wedding gown for the event's Cinderella theme. Their next collaboration came in December when Guinta wore a 1940s silhouette gown in green for her recital for the Governor General in Ottawa. In between recitals and the upcoming premiere of the Robert Lepage-directed production of The Nightingale and Other Short Fables, Wallis Giunta will be featured modelling David McCaffrey's gowns in print and online ads.

Who would you wear if you could chose any designer to create a gown for you?

The Nightingale and Other Short Fables

Olga Peretyatko as The Nightingale and Ilya Bannik as The Emperor in the COC production of The Nightingale & Other Short Fables.

Photo Credit: © 2009 Michael Cooper

Sometimes it seems like there is nothing new in the art world, and it is a rare occasion when I am surprised. But I was truly astonished when I saw the opera The Nightingale and Other Short Fables by The Canadian Opera Company (COC) last fall. This opera featured beautifully crafted puppets and an inversion of the operatic theatrical norm by placing the orchestra on stage and the singers in an orchestra pit filled with water. It was utterly spectacular in its innovation and absolutely delightful!

Ilya Bannik as The Emperor and Maria Radner as Death in the COC production of The Nightingale & Other Short Fables.

Photo Credit: © 2009 Michael Cooper

A co-production between the Canadian Opera Company, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Opéra national de Lyon, and De Nederlandse Opera in collaboration with Ex Machina (Québec), The Nightingale and Other Short Fables was such a sensation when it opened in Toronto in October, 2009, that extra performances were added to accommodate the overwhelming demand for tickets. The production then travelled to the prestigious Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in July 2010, and is currently being performed at the Opéra national de Lyon. It has garnered first-rate reviews everywhere.

Adam Luther as Japanese Envoy 1, Alexander Hajek as Japanese Envoy 3, Robert Pomakov (behind Hajek) as The Chamberlain, Olga Peretyatko as The Nightingale, Neil Craighead as Japanese Envoy 2 and Ilya Bannik as The Emperor in the COC production of The Nightingale & Other Short Fables.

Photo Credit: © 2009 Michael Cooper

If you live in the USA, there will be an opportunity to see this extraordinarily beautiful production of Robert Lepage’s The Nightingale and Other Short Fables at the world-renowned Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in March, 2011. The opera, set to the music of Stravinsky, is directed by Robert Lepage and will be conducted by COC Music Director Johannes Debus. This is the only U.S. engagement to date, and is scheduled at the Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, NY) for only four performances on March 1, 3, 4, and 6, 2011.