Opera is apparently big with the kids these days.
Vancouver's newest opera company is run by 20-year-olds.
Jacqueline Ko, artistic director, and Robin Eder-Warren, managing director, will launch Opera Mariposa with a gala concert, March 31.
"Opera Mariposa is dedicated to providing opportunities for local performers and emerging artists as a way for them to gain stage experience to explore a variety of repertoire and, really, to share their gifts with the audience," Ko said.
Ko and Eder-Warren, two award-winning sopranos, will perform arias from operas such as The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly and La Boheme, accompanied by pianist Michael Onwood, in a show called Witches, Waifs and Wives: The Great Women of Opera, at Marpole United Church.
"It's all about the great women of opera, the great female characters," Ko said.
With this concert that includes 12 costume changes, Opera Mariposa aims to give the audience a taste of what's to come in the fall.
"We'll also have a reception afterwards so people can talk to us one-on-one and mix and mingle," Ko said.
Ko and Eder-Warren met when they were eight-year-olds attending Sir William Osler elementary school in the Oakridge neighbourhood--they started studying voice when they were 10.
"By the time I was 12, I was completely hooked on opera, and I started singing professionally at 14," Ko said.
"Opera is just so expressive and passionate and, just the music, there's so much feeling in it," she added. "It has a very unique power to transport people and I wanted to share that."
Proceeds from Witches, Waifs and Wives will help fund the company's first opera production, which is planned for the fall. It's a double bill of two one-act operas, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Impresario and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's La serva padrona.
"They are both very funny, one-act operas and there's some gorgeous music," Ko said. "The Impresario, in fact, is a satire about life in an opera company and being an opera director and there's the duelling divas and all of that."
But Ko and Eder-Warren, who've worked together on previous opera productions, want to collaborate, not compete.
"There are so many amazing, talented singers in British Columbia but it's incredibly difficult to launch an opera career in North America. A lot of young singers end up going to Europe to find opportunities because compared to North America there are so many more opera houses and more chances to gain stage experience and build a name for yourself," Ko said.
Eder-Warren recently returned from performing and coaching in Germany and Luxembourg. She's performed on stages across Canada, in New York City and Disneyland. Her most recent credits include Despina in Cosi fan tutte with Lyric Opera Studio Weimar in Germany, and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Vancouver's The Opera Project.
Ko sings opera, Broadway show tunes and jazz. She produced a gala concert called Dreamscape: An Evening of Song for the Nightingale Research Foundation in West Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»in 2009 and wrote and produced a musical revue show, I Always Get My Man!, at a Kitsilano church in 2008.
Opera Mariposa will mount musical theatre productions, as well.
The concert starts at 7 p.m. at 1296 West 67th Ave. For more information, see operamariposa.com.
Twitter: @Cheryl_Rossi
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