Meet the guest artist: each year, we invite a stellar cast to help us celebrate and honor our Rubies nominees. Some are veteran performers, some are at the outset of their careers. All bring a unique and special quality to the presentations.

Regina Resnik

Scratch the vocal surface of most sopranos-turned-mezzos and you'll find a soprano singing mezzo roles: the notes may be there, but the timbre and gravity are not. But Regina Resnik is another matter. The tales of her early soprano glory are many: her Lady Macbeth, at 20, under Fritz Busch; her Metropolitan Opera debut as Leonora in Il Trovatore two years after that, with her first Met broadcast three months later--Beethoven's Leonore under Bruno Walter--both at the ripe old age of 22. There was her Delilah in the world premiere of Bernard Rogers' nearly forgotten The Warrior (surprisingly, as a mezzo, she never sang in Saint-Saens' more familiar take on the story), and her Ellen Orford in the Met premiere of Britten's Peter Grimes. By the time she crossed over into mezzoland in 1955, she was already a veteran--and she was only 33. While her career hadn't yet reached its peak, the voice had finally arrived where nature had intended it to go all along.

People tend to remember Resnik as an extroverted performer, a theatrical animal rather than a musician, so vivid were her Carmen, her Mistress Quickly, her Klytamnestra, so confidently could she doff a tragic mask to don a comic. But listen to the newly released sampling (on Decca) of Resnik's recordings and what impresses again and again is the subtlety of so much of her work: the lightly teasing insinuation of her Carmen "Seguidilla," for instance, or the hushed, numbed horror of Azucena's fire-lit memories in "Condotta ell'era in ceppi," or Mistress Quickly's twinkling delight in her baiting of Falstaff ("Reverenza!") at the Garter Inn. In none of these does she overplay her vocal hand: no chest-for-the-sake-of-chest, no showy ascents to the top of her range, no "affected parlando in place of a singing tone. How many singers can resist the temptation to shout the final "Tiens!" as Carmen returns to Jose the ring with which he pledged his love, just before his knife takes its fatal plunge? Resnik can, and does, resist, and the moment resonates all the more chillingly.

My own first encounter with her live was a Met Queen of Spades. I was an opera-crazy 14-year-old seeing his fourth opera, and Resnik was sharing the stage with two equally brilliant Canadians, Jon Vickers and Teresa Stratas. Needless to say, there was a whole lot of potently emotive singing going on. But amid it all, the sight and sound I carried most indelibly from that night is of Resnik as the nightgowned, wigless Countess (impressionable me never thinking at the time that the wigless pate was yet another wig), sitting nearly immobile in her armchair, singing the Gretry air recollected from her youth with a spellbinding quiet intensity. Every other Countess I've seen--a winning hand of them, from Elena Obraztsova to Irina Arkhipova to Maureen Forrester to Leonie Rysanek to Elisabeth Soderstrom--has had that memory to contend with.

Resnik's career didn't end with her last operatic performance. Even before she retired from opera, she'd begun directing--not just opera but documentary film (an acclaimed television account of Venice's Jewish ghetto and, recently, a salute to her late husband, the painter and stage designer Arbit Blatas, and his visions of the Brecht/Weill Threepenny Opera). She tackled the Broadway stage in a revival of Cabaret and won a Tony nomination for it. And, liberally, she's shared her insight and experience with her successors, young people aspiring to operatic careers at places such as the Mannes School of Music in New York City and the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that this wonderful artist, so worthy of reverenza herself, comes to Toronto not to receive honor but to extend it to colleagues. In every facet of her six-decade career, honoring her profession long ago became a habit impossible to break.

--Patrick Dillon

Julie Nesrallah

When the sensational mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah takes to the stage, she brings life experience and street smarts to her sparkling performances. The Ottawa-born Nesrallah, now 35, did not start her professional career until she was 29, only beginning serious singing studies in 1991. She received her B.A. in voice at Carleton University, followed by opera training at McGill University. Even before she graduated in 1997, she was hired to perform Isabella in L'Italiana in Algeri at Pacific Opera Victoria. She also had a New York agent. Since 1997, she has been a busy, full-time singer on both sides of the Canadian/U.S. border, and while Rossini buffo roles have been her bread and butter, she joined the ranks of acclaimed Carmens with her debut at Saskatchewan Opera in June 2003, a role she will repeat with both POV and the Kingston Symphony in 2004. Nesrallah will also sing her first Maddalena in Rigoletto at Opera Lyra Ottawa in March.

Between high school and university, Nesrallah describes her career as "partying and food-servicing" in Western Canada and England. She put herself through university by waitressing, and still feels guilty watching others doing the job. Born into a Lebanese, Christian immigrant family, she was a "big-voiced brat" in choirs, which, at age 12, led to voice lessons with Barbara Ross. In high school, she performed in operettas and musicals, was a lead singer in a rock band and also studied ballet and piano. While Western classical music is not part of her heritage, Nesrallah describes herself as having been born with "classical hard-wiring" because of her instant affinity for symphonic music.

The sassy, earthy, personality-plus Nesrallah is a dynamo on stage because she loves to act; because of this strong desire to communicate, she even practises in front of a mirror to see whether she believes herself. She throws herself into a role, aiming always to fuse the two sides of music--the intellectual and the emotional--into a seamless flow. "The most important thing to me," she says, "is to make people experience the feelings I have when I'm performing. I'm turned on by both deep emotions and comedy." Anchored in a strong technique, Nesrallah's voice has been praised for its warmth of expression and roundness of tone. Her big, polished sound is also flexible, allowing both assured coloratura and dramatic coloring. Nesrallah also cites her grounded personality for allowing her the ease she feels when she's "on display."

The singer is currently based in Bloomington, Indiana, where her significant other, Russian-Israeli-Canadian classical guitarist Daniel Bolshoy, is pursuing a doctorate. The two are also much in demand performing Spanish art songs, and have just completed a successful tour of the Maritimes. Says Nesrallah: "We call ourselves La Paloma, which means 'peace,' because we're poster children for a Middle East accord."--Paula Citron 

Peter McGillivray

Baritone Peter McGillivray was born into a musical family in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and grew up in Newmarket, Ontario, where he played the tuba in the school band and sang in choirs. Because he was always bursting into celebrity impersonations, he was dared by friends to try out for the school musical in Grade 11, and, to his great surprise, found himself as the lead. During his years at university--he enrolled in pre-med at the University of Toronto but ended up switching to history and English literature with a view to teaching--McGillivray kept up his music by singing in choirs and participating in community theatre. However, he felt increasingly drawn to the stage, and in his graduating B.A. year, he also became a voice major. Two years at the music faculty were followed by two years at U of T's opera school. The summer before opera school, McGillivray had attended the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh, England, studying lieder with British superstars such as baritone Thomas Allen and tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson. Of the experience, McGillivray says, "I knew I had come home."

Because McGillivray was often a soloist, he started singing lessons with Lynn Blaser when he was 23. "I felt I had a good instrument that needed development," he explains. "Lynn told me to stop thinking of myself as a 50-year-old man and act my age. My voice started to rise, and, within a year, I knew I was a baritone." Since finding his true calling, he has not only taken additional summer training at Orford, Aspen, Ravinnia and Aldeburgh, he has also become a fanatic opera- and concert-goer, believing firmly that one can learn a great deal by watching great artists at work.

Mcgillivray first attracted notice at the opera school in roles such as the Vicar in Albert Herring, and, in particular, as John Graves Simcoe in the John Beckwith/ James Reaney opera Taptoo! Another career jump-start was taking first place in the 2003 CBC/Radio-Canada Young Performers Competition, where he also won the People's Choice Award. Now 27, he is in his first year with the Canadian Opera Company Studio Ensemble. "The good news about singing in choirs," he says, "is that my voice was in use. The bad news is I developed a lot of nasty habits as a second bass having to find the low notes."

As his big, rolling, manly voice strengthens, the natural, warm tone is being revealed, as well as his ability to summon different colors and emotional levels, adding an extra bite or easing up for a romantic" sound as needed. McGillivray is also blessed with good instincts, and he is an excellent actor. In his apprentice COC Ensemble year, he will be performing Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas, the baritone in the Coffee Cantata and understudying Ford in Falstaff. He is also gaining experience in the COC chorus. "I may be a spinto down the line," he says, "because every year I seem to gain in range and power."

--Paula Citron

Frederique Vezina

Rising young soprano Frederique Vezina once thought she would be a midwife. Shy, serious and studious, she loved to sing but hated being on stage. Thus her mother was greatly surprised when Montreal-born Vezina asked to join a choir when she was seven. Because of her beautiful voice, Vezina was given solos, which prompted her mother to place her talented daughter in a special school for the arts. When she was 15, Vezina was selected to sing one of the spirits in L'Opera de Montreal's Die Zauberflote, and although she loved the experience, she elected to study science and literature. "I lasted one month," says Vezina, "because I missed music." Switching to vocal studies with Therese Sevadjian, she moved on to opera studies at McGill University in 1997, and, after graduation in 2002, joined the Canadian Opera Company Studio Ensemble. Vezina, now 26, was supported in her career choice by husband Jean-Francois Gignac, a Masters philosophy student whom she married at 23.

Her break-out roles were with Toronto-based Opera in Concert in 2001, performing Alaide in La Straniera and Genevra in Ariodante, and the Governess in the COC Ensemble's 2002 The Turn of the Screw. Vezina's performance of Lisa in the COC's The Queen of Spades the same year caused a sensation when, as understudy, she stepped in to replace the lead on opening night. Since 1997, Vezina has also had great success in competitions in Quebec, which she entered at the suggestion of her singing teacher to help control nervousness. The big competitions still lie ahead, but she did receive an Encouragement Grant from the George London Foundation in 2002. In fact, London's widow, Nora, was so impressed with Vezina that she brought the singer to New York at her own expense for a master class with soprano Catherine Malfitano.

While Vezina is a true lyric soprano, her gorgeous voice is also atypical because it has the intriguing darkness of mezzo coloring--what one critic called "the dark mahogany of tone." She is also a natural communicator who first makes emotional choices when she sings and only then is governed by vocal or technical demands. "The passion of music is everything to me," she says.

Knowing the pitfalls that can ruin young voices, Vezina, the COC and her management are taking a cautious approach to repertoire. This year, she tackled a Tatiana in Yevgeny Onegin at Opera Festival New Jersey, for example, but has turned down Mimi and Liu for other companies. Her 2003-4 roles include Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes and both Dido and Belinda in Dido and Aeneas (all for the COC), Micaela in Carmen (Cincinnati), the title role in La Veuve Joyeuse (Montreal) and Miranda in Pacific Opera Victoria's production of Hoiby's The Tempest. She also has an active oratorio and recital career. Says Vezina: "I'm in awe that I'm performing leading roles so early in my career."

--Paula Citron

Adrianne Pieczonka

Adrianne Pieczonka is no stranger to the Salzburg Festival, but this year was special. "This summer was a big milestone in that it was my operatic debut at Salzburg," the Canadian soprano says. "I did Elisabetta in Don Carlo for the first time, and absolutely loved it!"

In demand around the world, Pieczonka has sung under such distinguished conductors as Riccardo Muti, Neville Marriner, Lorin Maazel, Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Anthony Pappano and the late Georg Solti--and, with Don Carlo, added Valery Gergiev to the list. Critics have called her "vocally and dramatically outstanding" (Das Abendblatt, Hamburg) and have praised her for her "expressive and exquisite musicality" (El Pais, Madrid).

Pieczonka grew up in Burlington, Ontario, and studied at the universities of Western Ontario and Toronto, making her operatic debut as the Female Prisoner in the Canadian Opera Company's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in 1988. The following year, she moved to Vienna as a contracted artist at the Volksoper, and, from 1991 to 1995, at the Staatsoper. Her Staatsoper roles included the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, both Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Desdemona hi Otello, Tatyana in Yevgeny Onegin and Agathe in Der Freischutz. "I didn't chose Vienna," she says. "Vienna chose me."

During the 1990s she also made debuts with the companies of Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Amsterdam, Zurich, Florence and Buenos Aires, among others. In 1995, she moved to London and made her first appearance at England's Glyndebourne Festival Opera, as Donna Elvira, returning the next year for Arabella. In Canada, she sang the role of Mimi in the COC's La Boheme in 1994, and is fondly remembered for her performance in Roy Thomson Hall's Millennium Gala on Nero Year's Eve, 1999. She returns to Toronto in April for a much-anticipated Sieglinde in the COC's Die Walkure.

Her star is still rising as she continues to appear in prestigious debut engagements, winning over new audiences. Last year, she made her first appearance at Covent Garden, as Donna Anna, and, in February, she will debut at the Met as Lisa in The Queen of Spades. Other upcoming debuts will take her to Japan in September 2005, on tour with the Bavarian State Opera, to the grand reopening of La Scala in January 2005, as Elisabetta in Tannhauser and to Bayreuth in the summer of 2006, for Die Walkure.

Also a concert artist, this year she will sing recitals in Hamburg, Barcelona, Vienna and Bad Kissingen, Germany. She can also be heard on several recordings: Falstaff on Deutsche Grammophon, Don Giovanni (as Donna Anna) on Naxos, Die Fledermaus and a disc of Richard Strauss songs on Nightingale and Millennium Opera Gala on CBC Records.

At 40, Pieczonka is well aware she has the career all opera singers dream of. "I'm very happy with my place in life," she observes with understated pride. "I've worked hard and sacrificed lots for it. It's glamorous, but it's difficult. It's a wonderful, challenging lifestyle."--Colin Eatock

Ann Cooper Gay and the Canadian Children's Opera Chorus 

Fear of appearing silly in front of her chorus is not something Ann Cooper Gay is concerned about. In fact, sometimes looking silly is a happy requirement. "I want to be able to teach by example, to give them the confidence to sometimes look foolish, because that's what it is, isn't it? A company of fools."

Recalling Shakespeare's troupe of Elizabethan actors, this "company" happens to be the Canadian Children's Opera Chorus (CCOC) and the head "fool" happens to be their dynamic, creative and tirelessly energetic artistic director, Ann Cooper Gay. Founded in 1968 by Ruby Mercer and Lloyd Bradshaw, the chorus offers an alternative to the standard children's choir experience and provides a permanent children's chorus for Canadian Opera Company productions. The relationship between the COC and CCOC confines to flourish and the children have appeared in numerous productions, including The Cunning Little Vixen, Hansel und Gretel, The Queen of Spades, and this season's Tosca and Turandot. Children aged five to 16 are immersed in all aspects of operatic production and performance with the help of such artists as Claire Preston, Bronwen Low, Bill Walker and Cooper Gay's husband, conductor Errol Gay. The 200 voices of the CCOC are currently divided into no less than five distinct choruses, including the Main Chorus, the Canadian Youth Opera Chorus for those talented alumni that just can't stay away, and the Ruby Chorus, named after their founder and consisting of the very youngest opera-stars-in-waiting.

On meeting Cooper Gay, one can't help but be reminded of a sort of high-class Annie Oakley. Maybe it's the thick Texan accent, maybe it's the rootin'-tootin' upbeat attitude or maybe it's the fact that she's an opera director in a field dominated by men. In any event, since 2000, Cooper Gay has brought her own special brand of performing to hundreds of eager young minds.

Ironically, she once didn't even see herself as a conductor. While attending opera school at the University of Toronto, she appeared alongside children from the CCOC in a production of Benjamin Britten's The Little Sweep. A famous maxim from the film world warns of the dangers of working with animals and children, and Cooper Gay was somewhat hesitant. "Little did I think, when I was on stage with those CCOC kids, that I would ever be conducting them, let alone conducting at all," she recalls.

While pursuing a successful North American singing career, Cooper Gay thought there might be more for her. Her own children had reached school age, and the idea of teaching began to lake hold. She jokingly admits to turning the music program at Toronto's Swansea Public School into an "opera house." The foundation and leadership of the celebrated High Park Girls Chorus came next, followed by an appointment by University of Toronto's Doreen Rao to conduct what was then called the Women's Chorus. Cooper Gay's operatic instincts again took over. "Doreen hired me to conduct this chorus made up of leftovers: piano majors and opera soloists who did not want to be in a blended choir. It was fun to take this rag-tag group of people and turn it into something."

It seems that conducting groups of individuals appealed to her, for when the call came in 2000 for her to take up the leadership of the CCOC, it seemed like a natural progression. Although the CCOC had the discipline of a stand-and-sing choir, it was certainly a different beast. "There is very little of the herd instinct," she says. "They're not a choir, they're an opera troupe---a collection of individuals."

So a company of wonderfully wild and unique children met a zany and inspiring leader to arrive at the present incarnation of the CCOC. Last May's performance of Harry Somers' A Midwinter Night's Dream was the headliner at Soundstream Canada's International Musicools Festival and was recorded for release as part of the Canadian Music Centre's Window on Harry Somers collection. This year promises no less of a challenge as they tackle the production of their newly commissioned opera, The Hobbit (written by the author of this article), followed by an Atlantic Canada tour next summer.

When asked about the future of the CCOC, Cooper Gay offers one emphatic response. "A school. I want a school and a home of our own so we can expand what we're doing." Whatever the future holds, Cooper Gay feels she is home.

--Dean Burry 

Steven Philcox

"I really enjoy the collaborative aspect of music-making as opposed to playing on my own," says Steven Philcox, who has made a specialty of accompanying singers. "And there's something innately human about the voice: the instrument is the body and the vocal sound is the most emotional that can be produced. I also love the idea of working with texts, with great literature."

The Toronto-based pianist is quickly gaining recognition as one of Canada's finest collaborators, having worked with a host of renowned singers, including Richard Margison, Jean Stilwell and Isabel Bayrakdarian. He has been heard in recital on New York's WQXR under the auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation and nationally on the CBC Radio shows West Coast Performance, Music Around Us and On Stage. As well, he has performed on TV Ontario's Studio 2 and recently appeared on Bravo television's Live from the Rehearsal Hall with Richard Margison. Upcoming engagements include a recital for the CBC, and his debut recital at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York. His debut recording with Canadian soprano Martha Guth featuring the works of Debussy, Crumb and Messiaen will be released this winter.

A graduate of the University of British Columbia, where he studied with Alice Enns and Rena Sharon, Philcox received his Master of Music degree (specializing in vocal accompaniment) from the Manhattan School of Music, where he was a scholarship student of the internationally renowned pianist, Warren Jones. Philcox is in his fifth season as vocal coach, repetiteur and assistant conductor with the Canadian Opera Company, and is on the faculty at Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music.

Is a parallel conducting career on the horizon? Last year, Philcox was invited by COC general director Richard Bradshaw to assist at the podium with rehearsals for the COC Ensemble production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw, an opportunity that he found particularly enticing. "It made me think about music in a whole new way," he says. "And that's something exciting."

--Rick MacMillan

Howard Dyck

Conductor and radio host Howard Dyck is thrilled to be back again for the second consecutive year as host of the Opera Canada Awards. "I know so many of the people," he said recently from his home in Waterloo, Ontario, "that it's like spending an evening with my friends. And it's a chance to help recognize some of the leaders in Canada's operatic world."

Dyck is widely known across Canada as host of the CBC Radio Two shows Choral Concert and Saturday Afternoon at the Opera. He holds honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degrees from the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University. In 2002, he was appointed to the Order of Canada.

Currently conductor and artistic director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Philharmonic Choir and Chamber Singers, as well as the Consort Caritatis Choir and Orchestra, Dyck has guest-conducted the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Arnold Schoenberg Choir (Vienna), Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchestra (Salzburg), Gaechinger Kantorei (Stuttgart), Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, and many other choirs and orchestras in North America and abroad.

He has made a specialty of presiding over large choral-orchestral works on both sides of the Atlantic. Last summer, he led the flexible Caritatis forces hi performances of Mozart's Requiem in "the three Mozart cities" of Prague, Salzburg and Vienna. "It was just a great experience," he says enthusiastically. "We had a top-notch group of singers, with our Canadian soprano soloist Laura Whalen. And all three concerts were completely sold out."

That trend is likely to continue with Dyck's upcoming performances of Britten's War Requiem, part of Niki Goldschmidt's "Benjamin Britten: A Celebration," a multi-venue festival in southern Ontario that marks the 90th birthday of the late British composer. "I believe it's the greatest choral-orchestral work of the 20th century," says Dyck, who is excited about the soloists he has been able to round up: rising soprano Barbara Livingston as well as tenor Michael Schade and baritones Russell Braun and Theodore Baerg.

Who could ask for more? How about a pair of Messiah performances, Dec. 13 and 14, which will see Dyck leading an all-star Canadian cast of soloists: Karina Gauvin, Daniel Taylor, Ben Heppner and James Westman, with the Kitchener-Waterloo Philharmonic Choir and Symphony Orchestra? And more large-scale music-making is on the horizon, with Dyck making plans for a Good Friday 2004 performance of Dvorak's Requiem, in his home town, and a German tour of that same work next July, taking him to Munich, Dresden, Leipzig and Berlin. Plans include the making of a recording of the work, with tour soloist Measha Bruggergosman. An embarrassment of riches, to be sure.

--Rick MacMillan