September 23, 2004
Ottawa -- Canada's National Arts Centre today announced the box office will open on Monday, September 27 for FILUMENA, the exciting, all-new Canadian opera that will open the Alberta Scene, presented by EPCOR, on April 28th, 2005.
Canada's National Arts Centre's Alberta Scene presents FILUMENA, produced by The Banff Centre with music by John Estacio and libretto by John Murrell OC, AOE. FILUMENA was co-commissioned and originally co-produced by The Banff Centre and The Calgary Opera. Alberta Scene presents FILUMENA in association with Opera Lyra Ottawa, with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts. The presentation of FILUMENA is also generously supported by gifts from the BC-based Martha Lou Henley Charitable Foundation and from Canada's East Coast by Margaret and David Fountain.
"We know that FILUMENA will thrill audiences in the National Capital region," said Heather Moore, Alberta Scene Producer and Executive Director, "because it's a truly compelling, romantic, dramatic Canadian story, set to beautiful music. It's also a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to witness musical history."
FILUMENA is an all-Canadian, new work that premiered to great acclaim in Calgary in 2003 and was revived for the Banff Summer Festival that same year. "The public vote was, ‘we have a winner here,'" said Jill Peterson, Director of Art is Vital, while the Calgary Herald proclaimed, "No one should miss the opportunity to see and hear what is clearly the event of the season. Mimi and Madame Butterfly, move over: there's a new heroine on the block and her name is FILUMENA"
FILUMENA is a truly Canadian story, based upon the compelling tale of FILUMENA Lassandro, a young Italian immigrant to the Crowsnest Pass region of Alberta, who became involved with the bootlegging trade in the early 1920s. She was the last woman to be hanged in Alberta.
"I would predict that this opera has what it takes to endure. It quite spectacularly caught the sense of the community at that time in our history," said John Irwin, Mayor of Crowsnest Pass. While FILUMENA's story did not end happily, those of many members of her family and other Italian immigrants to the region at that time, did. Those links with history were renewed at the premiere of FILUMENA, when over 30 family members related to the original characters came to witness and enjoy the opera.
Filled with passion, romance, drama and tragedy, FILUMENA is the perfect story for the grand themes and production values of opera. It is performed in English and Italian with French surtitles and explores the subjects of the bootlegging trade, Italo-Canadians in Alberta and the death penalty in Canada.
The Alberta Scene will be the second in a series of biennial regional festivals produced and hosted by the National Arts Centre that showcase the best in Canadian arts and entertainment from coast to coast.
Alberta Scene will take place in the nation's capital from April 28 to May 10, 2005, Alberta's Centennial year. In the spring of 2005, the Alberta Scene will showcase more than 600 Alberta artists in 95 events, over 13 days, in 19 venues across the nation's capital. Alberta artists will perform on a national stage, be introduced to new audiences and meet with more than 80 presenters and impresarios from across Canada, the United States and Europe. Pop, jazz, rock, country, folk, blues, hip hop, classical music, Aboriginal and world arts, theatre, dance, literary and visual arts, Franco-Albertan arts, culinary arts…all of these and more will highlight the diversity and dynamism of contemporary Alberta.
"The Alberta Scene is EPCOR's gift to the province during its Centennial," said Don Lowry, EPCOR President and CEO. "EPCOR is delighted to be helping to boost the careers of Alberta's artists by supporting the Alberta Scene."
An extensive presenter's programme will see more than 80 domestic and international presenters attend the Alberta Scene, to book Alberta artists and arts organizations for future performances across Canada and around the world. This aspect of the Alberta Scene will pay dividends long after the festival is over as Alberta artists are engaged for tours, concerts, festivals and performances.
The Alberta Scene will also provide a boost for other aspects of the province as well. Alberta's burgeoning cultural tourism industry will benefit from increased national exposure through the Alberta Scene, which will help to profile Alberta as a tourism destination of choice.
Alberta Scene is presented by EPCOR, supported by Major Sponsors TSX Venture Exchange and The Banff Centre, Performance Sponsor Enbridge, Sponsors Holiday Inn and Galaxie. Media sponsors include CBC Radio-Canada, the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, LeDroit, the Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald. Alberta Scene is grateful for support from the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta, the Canada Council for the Arts and Western Economic Diversification Canada.
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Nadine Lunt
Communications Advisor
National Arts Centre
(613) 947-7000 ext 560
nlunt@nac-cna.ca
Media Information:
Jayne Watson
Director of Communications
National Arts Centre
(613) 947-7000 ext 260
jwatson@nac-cna.ca