State of the Arts
photo:Peter Holst
BC Business Online
By Jessica Werb
Last August Canada’s art world mourned the sudden passing of Richard Bradshaw, the Canadian Opera Company’s charismatic artistic director who suffered a fatal heart attack at age 63. Chief among Bradshaw’s legacies was taking charge of a 30-year campaign to bring a world-class opera house to Toronto. In the fall of 2006, the $181-million Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts burst onto the world stage, opening the 2006/07 season with the first complete Canadian performance, over four nights, of Richard Wagner’s epic masterpiece, Der Ring des Nibelungen. As Wagnerites from across the globe descended upon Toronto, members of Vancouver’s arts and culture community turned an unmistakable shade of green.