Opera Online.

Last year in Opera Canada, I listed Web sites for a number of Canadian opera companies. In response, I received an email from Micheline McKay, director of an advocacy group based in Toronto called the Professional Opera Companies of Canada/Compagnies D'Opera Professionnelles du Canada (POCC/COPC).

The POCC was founded in order to advance, as the organization puts it, "the interests of the country's 17 opera and new music-theatre companies." (This number will increase to 18, as l'Opera de Quebec is expected to join in the near future.) The POCC "works in collaboration with OPERA America, a growing international service organization for opera that includes members from the United States, Canada and Europe, as well as Australia, Chile, New Zealand and Japan." Although the POCC was officially incorporated only in August 2000, explains POCC chair Claire Hopkinson, it has functioned as a working group for over six or seven years. As for the Website (www.opera.ca), McKay says it was designed "as a onestop shop to what's happening in opera companies across Canada." The site is divided into five sections (member-company listings; facts about the POCC/COPC; what's new and upcoming; resources from OPERA America; and an audience development report). It is somewhat bareboned at the moment, but there are plans to u pgrade by the end of the year. And one of the benefits of the site is that it provides quick access to all major Canadian opera companies, as well as to OPERA America's powerful--and invaluable--performance schedule and search engine (www.operaam.org).