VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert concludes its Golden Jubilee Season with Verdi’s La Battaglia di Legnano on Sunday, 7 April 2024 – 2:30 pm at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts. “Our amazing 50th Anniversary season comes to a close with another in our series of Verdi Unbound! operas, celebrating unfamiliar works from Verdi’s Galley Years”, comments OIC’s General Director Guillermo Silva-Marín. “Verdi was anxious to express his sympathy with Italy’s Risorgimento Movement and this tale of national oppression framing two men’s love for one woman was fertile ground for music of drama, passion and patriotism.” La Battaglia di Legnano is a highly emotional piece set against the backdrop of the Lombard League’s triumph over Frederic Barbarossa at Legnano in 1176. The premiere in Rome in 1849 was rapturously received by the public and they demanded that the fourth act be repeated immediately.

Helen Becqué debuts as Music Director and Pianist, with Robert Cooper as Director of the renowned Opera in Concert Chorus. After her auspicious OIC debut as Cinna in Mozart’s Lucio Silla and Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmelites for SOLT, soprano Julia MacVicar returns to OIC in the role of Lida, caught between two men: her husband Rolando, sung by Evan Korbut and Arrigo, her first love sung by Scott Rumble. The battling forces of human frailty combine with those threatening Italy for a devastating and tragic denouement of sacrifice and heroism. Rumble was last heard for Opera in Concert as Jason in Medea and covers the role for the COC’s upcoming production. His recent credits include the Vancouver and Montreal opera companies. Stuart Hamilton Emerging Artist Award winner, Anishinaabe baritone Evan Korbut starred as Louis Riel in the Manitoba Opera’s Li Keur, Heart of the North, in Missing for Anchorage Opera and was just in Washington, D.C. for American Patriots. Handaya Rusli as Federico Barbarossa is the main threat to the peninsula and the nation. Rusli has been heard as John Sorel in Menotti’s The Consul, the title role of Don Giovanni by Mozart for SOLT and Cerberus in Orpheus in the Underworld by Offenbach for TOT.

VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert is the only company presenting rare and seldom heard works exclusively. The company's mandate is also to promote and feature emerging Canadian artists, hundreds now enjoying careers in the national and international arenas and is proud to have done so. Over its 50-year history, the company has presented over 207 productions.

Opera in Concert is supported by the McCarthy Tétrault Foundation, the Estate of Hiroko Keith, John Gary Adamson, the Jackman Foundation, The William and Nona Heaslip Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, with Classical 96.3 FM as media sponsor. Single tickets are available from the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts Box Office, 1 Front Street East, by phone – at 416-366-7723 or 1-800-708-6754 or online at TOLIVE.com. The theatre is wheelchair accessible and close to public transit and municipal parking.