Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Briane Nasimok served as a supernumerary in 287 performances for the Canadian Opera Company in the 1970s under its first General Director, Herman Geiger Torel. ‘Supers’, as they are known, are like movie extras -- non-singing volunteers who provide the dramatic background for the soloists and choir.
"I am who I am because of opera," says Nasimok. His stage career was purely accidental, triggered by being taken to see the touring musical Oliver! at Toronto's O'Keefe Centre. He was only eight years old but immediately became bewitched with show business, and resolute about some day finding his way onto the O'Keefe stage.
Opera had never registered on his radar; his only knowledge of it was thanks to Bugs Bunny and his Looney Toons pals. The main selling point for becoming a super was that the COC worked out of the O'Keefe Centre.
His supernumerary debut was a 1972 production of Lucia di Lammermoor, in which he was cast as ‘the elegant gentleman on the right’.
"Suddenly, the director yells over the microphone, 'You, the one on the right. Yes you. You walk like a penguin. Don't,'" He didn't, and built a sideline playing pirates, soldiers, waiters, servants and an array of people in the crowd.
"I think 85 per cent of the extras do it for the love of opera," he says. "You get great costumes, fabulous wigs and put on makeup. So I was able to live out my fantasy of being on that stage." Nasimok’s final COC show was Aida at Toronto's SkyDome.
Briane’s solo show, Confessions of an Operatic Mute, provides the kind of backstage view of Canadian operatic history that is rapidly being lost. There’s a bit of Jack Benny’s deadpan expressions, a bit of the self-deprecatory manner of Woody Allen recounting his romantic escapades, maybe a bit of Groucho Marx, perhaps with an extra bit of Shelly Berman. And yes, the stories are very funny. Briane is one of a kind.
CONFESSIONS OF AN
OPERATIC MUTE
Briane Nasimok
Tuesday 25 November 2014, 2.30 p.m.
at the FESTIVAL INN, 1144 Ontario St.
Stratford, Ontario
Tickets are $10 (or admission is included for Fall Season subscribers)
For more information,
call John at 519-284-4814
or Joanne at 226-921-0082
2014-11-16
Stratford: Fringe hit "Confessions of an Operatic Mute" comes to Stratford November 25