DARE TO FEEL EVERYTHING
2025–2026 SEASON
“The most divine poetry, my friend, is that which teaches us to love!”
Rudolfo’s words from La Bohème resonate as we look ahead to the 2025–2026 season. At Vancouver Opera, we believe that great art shouldn’t just be observed, but absorbed; fully taken in so that we might learn to live more fully. As tempting as it can be to close ourselves off from the day-to-day overwhelm, it’s essential that we celebrate what makes us wonderfully, messily human by sharing transformative experiences of some of the finest art ever made.
For our 66th season, we’re bringing operas by the art form’s greatest composers to the QET stage. These timeless works run the gamut—in some cases the gauntlet—of emotions, while exploring social norms and the consequences of personal choice. Verdi’s Rigoletto is a tense, dramatic tale of revenge, fate, corruption, and the father-daughter bond. Through comedy, Mozart’s Così fan tutte investigates love, fidelity, and moral ambiguity. To close the season, Puccini’s La Bohème will take
us to 1800s Paris, where youth’s passions find their opposite in the fragility of life and love, and idealism strives valiantly in the face of reality.
These operas are classics, and their themes remain urgent today. Our ticket subscribers make presenting world-class productions like these possible, season after season. When you subscribe, not only do you get access to the best seats at the best prices, plus insider news on special events and community initiatives, you also support our creative work onstage and our outreach work in schools, libraries, and anywhere and everywhere the love of opera can be fostered.
With a season of dynamic masterpieces ahead of us, let’s share extraordinary experiences and dare to feel everything that makes us fully human.
See you at the theatre!
Tom Wright, General Director, Vancouver Opera
RIGOLETTO
OCT 25, 30, NOV 2M , 2025 |
CONDUCTOR: JACQUES LACOMBE
DIRECTOR: GLYNIS LEYSHON
RIGOLETTO: MICHAEL CHIOLDI
GILDA: SARAH DUFRESNE
DUKE OF MANTUA: YONGZHAO YU
WITH THE VO ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH PROJECTED TITLES
QUEEN ELIZABETH THEATRE
The tragic tale of a father’s desperate love for his daughter—and the dangerous double-edged sword of vengeance—set against a backdrop of decadence and dark intrigue.
The jester Rigoletto had long enjoyed the privilege of mocking the Duke of Mantua’s adversaries, but when his beloved daughter becomes the target of the morally corrupt Duke’s abuse, Rigoletto sets in motion a revenge plot that careens with the propulsive energy of an edge-of-the-seat thriller while bringing themes of opulence and oppression into sharp focus.
Under director Glynis Leyshon (Flight of the Hummingbird) and the baton of Vancouver Opera
Music Director Jacques Lacombe, unforgettable pieces like La donna è mobile and the heartwrenching Caro nome will soar to life, sung by extraordinary voices like the sought-after American baritone Michael Chioldi as Rigoletto, and, as Gilda, the award-winning UK-based Canadian soprano Sarah Dufresne, who Opera Canada praised for her “tremendous dramatic presence,” and “astonishing vocal dexterity.”
In a new production built in partnership with Pacific Opera Victoria, our 2025–2026 season opener will push this tense tragedy’s boundaries while staying true to Verdi’s immortal story of love and revenge.
CONDUCTOR: LESLIE DALA
DIRECTOR: ROB HERRIOT
FIORDILIGI: JAMIE GROOTE
DORABELLA: ALEX HETHERINGTON
DESPINA: TRACY DAHL
FERRANDO: OWEN MCCAUSLAND
GUGLIELMO: CLARENCE FRAZER
DON ALFONSO: DANIEL OKULITCH
WITH THE VO ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH PROJECTED TITLES
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
COSÌ FAN TUTTE
FEB 7, 12, 15M , 2026 | QUEEN ELIZABETH THEATRE
Two couples are put to the ultimate test of fidelity in a whirlwind of mistaken identities, tender moments, and mischievous tricks: Così fan tutte is a comic romp that slyly doubles as an exploration of the heart’s highs and lows.
The cynical Don Alfonso bets his young friends Ferrando and Guglielmo that their fiancées will betray their trust, so he convinces the men to…lie to their partners to trick them into infidelity! With the help of the chameleonic and cynical-beyondher-years maid Despina, Dorabella and Fiordiligi are put to the test to see if, as the title suggests, “all women are like that.”
VO audiences haven’t been treated to Mozart’s sublime opera buffa classic for over 20 years, and this fresh interpretation will cast the playful genius of one of opera’s most beloved works in a contemporary West Coast Canadian light.
Written late in his short life, Così features some of the most beautiful music ever composed—by Mozart or anyone else. His nuanced score adds psychological complexity to the uproarious comedy of librettist Lorenzo da Ponte (Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro), making for an irresistible musical ride through every up, down, twist and turn on the rollercoaster of love.
DARE TO FEEL LOVE & LOSS
LA BOHÈMEGIACOMO PUCCINI
APR 25, 26M , 30, MAY 2, 3M , 2026
QUEEN ELIZABETH THEATRE
CONDUCTOR: JONATHAN DARLINGTON
DIRECTOR: BRENNA CORNER
RODOLFO: IVAN MAGRÌ
MIMÌ: JONELLE SILLS
MARCELLO: GREGORY DAHL
MUSETTA: LARA CIEKIEWICZ
WITH THE VO ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH PROJECTED TITLES
The 2025–2026 season closes with one of opera’s most enduring love stories, set in the world’s most romantic city, rendered with the most vibrant characters and melodies. Puccini’s masterpiece transports us to the heart of 1830s bohemian life in Paris, where love blossoms amidst dreams, hardships, and the unyielding pursuit of artistic freedom.
La Bohème has remained one of the most beloved and frequently performed operas worldwide since its 1896 premiere, due in large part to captivating pieces like Quando m’en vo, a.k.a. “Musetta’s Waltz”, and perhaps the most famous duet in opera, O soave fanciulla, sung on that moonlit moment when Mimì and Rodolfo fall in love. In a bustling community of artists, students,
philosophers, and Quartier Latin café denizens, the deep connection between the young poet Rodolfo and the seamstress Mimì is eventually tested by the bittersweet passage of time and the emotional toll of illness and poverty.
VO Music Director Emeritus Jonathan Darlington returns to conduct some of the most romantic and iconic music in opera history, while Pacific Opera Victoria Artistic Director Brenna Corner crosses the Salish Sea to direct a stunning international cast. Whether you’re discovering it for the first time or returning to a beloved classic, La Bohème speaks passionately to the soul, reminding us to cherish the fragility and fleeting beauty of life and love.
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