JUNE 2016 ISSUE NO. 73

It is with great sadness that we read of the passing of Jane Elizabeth (Fraser) Howlett, wife of Dr. Michael Howlett, which occurred at her residence on May 11, 2016. Born on October 27, 1961 in New Glasgow, Jane pursued voice studies during her high-school years with such success that she was accepted into the Bachelor of Arts Program offered by the Department of Music, Dalhousie University, in the studio of Prof. Elvira Gonnella. After graduation Jane became a voice teacher, both at the Maritime Conservatory of the Performing Arts and in her private voice studio. Many of her students went on to have accomplished careers in music. She was a frequent soloist with the Dalhousie Chorale. At Halifax’s historic St. Paul’s Anglican Church she was Principal Soprano, and had many opportunities there to develop her special talent and affinity for both Baroque and contemporary soprano solo repertoire. After moving to Saint John, NB, she continued her vocal activities, performing for the Saint John Theatre Company the role of Grace in Annie and the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music. She loved to help out in her community. She volunteered at Hope Mission Saint John, at music festivals, the Saint John Regional Hospital Palliative Care Unit and with Read Saint John literacy training. Jane played an important part in the founding years of the Nova Scotia Opera Association and in its maturation into Opera NS. She was our very first Soprano lead, as Miss Silvertongue in Mozart’s The Impresario, our inaugural show. She participated in several editions of both Opera Valentine and the New Year’s Eve Galas. She crowned her contribution to ONS as Mrs. Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff.

Jane Elizabeth Howlett 1961-2016

Keen to support and participate in the growth of Halifax’s musical scene she gave generously of her time and talent. During her life in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, as her Obituary put it so well: “It gave her true pleasure to see happiness in others and she showed a selfless sincerity of concern for those in need. Above all, she loved her family, and always looked forward to baking cookies with her grandsons. She was a true Maritimer who loved the ocean, the cottage, the beach and a glass of exceptional red wine.” Besides her husband and mother, she is survived by her immediate family: two children Christopher (Jessica)

Howlett, of London, Ont. and Allyson Howlett, of Saint John; grandsons Isaiah and Levi Howlett; brothers David (Kathryn) Fraser of Royal Leamington Spa, England and Robert (Janey) Fraser, and their children.

Tributes to Jane To write of Jane, who was my student for her time at Dalhousie, is challenging since so many have praised her as a singer and a lovely personality. I knew Jane as a student but also as a fun-loving girl, an excited fiancée of Dr. Michael, a happily married housewife, who not only continued singing, but began teaching in her new Truro home, a happy mother of Christopher and later Allyson. There are two particular memories that have never left my aging brain – filled with thoughts of teaching so many students – and Jane is the subject of both.

Jane Elizabeth Howlett

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Tributes to Jane (continued)

At a time when she was tentative about her upper voice, I ventured to suggest she learn one of the most demanding arias in the repertoire – not as a performance piece, but as a challenging exercise. The aria from Die Entfurung aus dem Serail has terrified primadonnas in many opera performances. To my astonishment (and that of Helen Murray who was piano accompanist) she met the challenge without wavering or fatigue. The second occasion which springs to mind is her performance of the very long Letter Aria in Eugene Onegin, much loved by all who know it, and particularly suited to Jane, not just vocally, but because it typified Jane's personality for me, especially at the time when she first fell in love with Michael. My final memory is my amazement and admiration of Jane's handling of her illness. Her letters at Christmas were of the fun she and Michael had performing together in theatre at Saint John, her pleasure in Christopher's wife and baby – no complaints of surgical events – just making the most of every event. I was her voice teacher, but she certainly taught me a great deal.

Prof. Elvira Gonnella, Dalhousie Department of Music (ret’d)

Jane was a friend, a contemporary, a co-conspirator, a generous actor, an outstanding lyric soprano, a supportive colleague voice teacher and a quality human being. The very first memory that jumped into my head about her was being backstage during a performance of The Marriage of Figaro with Jane joining the Dalhousie Opera Workshop students to perform the role of Countess Almaviva in Greg Servant’s production in the early 90’s. I clearly remember her getting off stage after singing (nailing it!) “Dove Sono” and she was absolutely gleeful! I thought it was one of her finest performances – both vocally and acting-wise. She was so thoroughly elated: love of singing, the art form, the moment…she was pure joy. The other day I was visiting my parents. I realized that the key chain I have my parents’ keys on was a present from Jane after the ONS production of Falstaff. It is a pewter pick-up truck. In that opera, Jane and I were cast as husband and wife when she was Alice Ford. “Ford” truck, get it?! Jane’s sense of humour... When we spoke about her doing Miss Silvertongue in the inaugural ONS production of The Impresario, she was so incredibly supportive and helped make it all happen. I asked her if she’d consider dyeing her hair blond for the role and she got so fired up about that! Again, that joyfulness of performing and fully participating in the art form burst out of her. She was there every step of the way, enthusiastically sharing the aspiration that Nova Scotia needed and deserved its own opera company. The world is a lesser place without you, my friend.

Jason Parkhill, Co-Founder, NS Opera Association I first met Jane when adjudicating a music festival in New Glasgow during my initial season as Dalhousie’s Music Department Chair. I was particularly impressed by this high school student’s understanding of the texts of her solos and the sincerity of meaning with which she conveyed them; I awarded her first place in the French Solo Class on that account. This understanding of the poetry of an art song or the religious conviction of sacred repertoire was one of Jane’s identifying and pleasing artistic traits. I think it was that perception of what a song was really about, the soul and the heart communicating through the melody, that made her performances so endearing to her audiences. I treasure the memory of the many, many works of Purcell, Handel and Bach we performed together with the St. Paul’s Singers and their subsequent identities as The Georgian and The Walter Kemp Singers.

Jason Parkhill and Jane Howlett as Ford and his wife Alice in the 2004 ONS production of Verdi’s Falstaff.

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It’s time to return to the Town of Titipu and one of the greatest English operettas of all time, Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic The Mikado, which will tour SW Nova Scotia this month! Since its première in 1885 at the Savoy Theatre in London, The Mikado has become one of the most-performed pieces of musical theatre in history. As always, the strength of opera-in-concert rests squarely on the skills of the singers, who have to sing and act without the support of sets or costumes. MCO has a superb cast of professionals and locals for The Mikado, almost all of them from the Maritimes. Making their solo MCO debuts are three wonderful singers: Halifax resident Jon-Paul Décosse as the Mikado; young Halifax tenor Patrick Simms as the lovelorn Nanki-Poo (A Wandering Minstrel I); and Lunenburg mezzo Esther Ernst as Peep Bo. The Three Little Maids are rounded off with returning Halifax soprano Maureen Batt as Yum-Yum and Bridgewater soprano Katie Cochrane as Pitti Sing. Also returning are audience favourites Andrew Tees as the scornful Pooh-Bah, Lunenburg baritone Rob O’Quinn as Pish Tush, and Lunenburg contralto Nina Scott-Stoddart as the bloodthirsty Katisha. Ross Thompson from Truro brings his own inimitable touch to the role of Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner.

Tributes to Jane (continued)

She was always hungry for new pieces, diligently preparing some tricky passages in my own works, or when bringing me song cycles by Dvořák which she insisted on learning to perform in Czech or works by Canadian composers such as John Beckwith. She gave zestful presentations of musical comedy numbers (a highlight being “Just you wait, Henry Higgins” in Dal’s Summer Music Theatre Workshop with Alan Lund), and charmingly idiomatic lead roles in the Dal Chorale’s Gilbert and Sullivan concert operettas for Symphony NS. She received two very special positive commendations. Our beloved Dr. Georg Tintner had sincere kind words to say after what was surely the peak of her concert career, the role of Tatiana in the Dalhousie complete presentation of Eugene Onegin. After the Bicentennial Concert for the University of King’s College, in which she sang some Purcell sacred pieces with Maureen Forrester, Maureen graciously handed to her the floral bouquet with which this great Canadian artist had just been presented. In these days of remembering a lovely voice and a warmly human fellow musician, we rejoice to know that, in Longfellow’s words, she “has moved a little nearer to the maker of all music”.

Walter H. Kemp, ONS Artistic Director

Maritime Concert Opera Presents Gilbert & Sullivan’s

The Mikado on Tour

The Mikado (continued)

MCO’s production is in concert (all the music with linking narration instead of dialogue, and without set or costumes) accompanied by Tara Scott at the piano. It wouldn’t be a real MCO production without our enthusiastic and talented local chorus under the direction of Jane Kristenson. In fact, this year’s chorus is our biggest and best ever — everyone loves the music of Gilbert and Sullivan! Performances are: Sunday June 19, 2:30 p.m., Lilian Piercey Concert Hall, Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts, 6199 Chebucto Road, Halifax; Tuesday, June 21, 7:30 p.m. Osprey Arts Centre, Shelburne; Thursday, June 23, 7:30 p.m., Kings Theatre, Annapolis Royal; Saturday, June 25, 7:30 p.m., Central United Church, Lunenburg. Tickets for Halifax and Lunenburg are $25 and are available on-line through Ticket Halifax – tickethalifax.com – or at the door or call 902-634-4280 to reserve. Tickets for students are $15 at the door only, and tickets for young people 16 and under are $10, also at the door only. Lunenburg tickets are also available at Shop on the Corner, Lunenburg, Strings’n’Things, Bridgewater and Kinburn Pharmasave, Mahone Bay. Tickets for Shelburne and Annapolis Royal are available from the theatres.

Congratulations to ONS Awards Winners

2016 Kiwanis Music Festival ONS Ted and Rae Rhodes Vocal Award (to the runner up, Vocal Rose Bowl) – Matthew McGreer: student of Jason Davis, appeared in Opera Valentine and as Don Fernando in our Informoperal 2016 Fidelio. ONS Prize (to the winner of the Opera Solo Class) – Katrina Westin: BMus in voice (Dalhousie), MMus in opera (McGill), toured with Les jeunesses musicales 2015 production of Roméo et Juliet. Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts June Convocation

ONS Voice Scholarship (to a promising student displaying aptitude for further vocal studies) – Abigail Sinclair, soprano: student of Paula Philips; next Season will enter her Graduating year at Sacred Heart School; chosen for the role of the Novice in Suor Angelica, HSOF 2016.

Abigail Sinclair (Photo by Frankie Macaulay)

Opera For All! Layout by David Keenan

Newsletter of Opera Nova Scotia 6199 Chebucto Road, Halifax NS B3L 1K7

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Opera Nova Scotia

Members at Large

Artistic Director – Dr. Walter H. Kemp

Administrative Officer – Vanessa Buhr-Rountree

Chair – Ifan Williams

Vice Chair – Dr. Eve Roberts

Treasurer – Carol Grimmitt

Secretary – Ann Conrad

Archivist – Jeanette Ireland

Education Director – Pamela Sweet Smith

Fundraising and Marketing Director – Erica Butler

Hospitality Director & Ticket Convener –

Sheila Andrecyk

Membership Director – Elinor Benjamin

Properties & Space – Stan Salsman

Director of Volunteers – Lynette Wahlstrom

Ruth A. Boorman Dr. Neil Robertson

Paul Coolen Franco Tarulli

Dr. Peter Fillmore June Trenbirth

Opera Nova Scotia appreciates the support of

Municipal Government

B y Dappertutto

The close of an opera Season finds the management looking ahead to explore some adventurous repertoire for future production. It is during these considerations that one comes across the title or subject of a work that makes one wish the composer either had completed it, or had not put the idea aside at the libretto stage. Match the titles of four such operas to their composer; as a confusion tactic two “extra” names have been included in the composer list.

Answers

1. Jesus of Nazareth (only the prose draft of the libretto written by the prospective composer)

2. Christopher Sl y (from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew; idea discarded by composer).

3. The Fall of the House of Usher (from Edgar Allan Poe; work unfinished at composer’s death, material sufficient to have allowed attempted conclusion by others).

4. King Lear (a complete libretto was given to the composer, who ultimately rejected the subject).

a) Debussy

b) Puccini

c) Bellini

d) Verdi

e) R. Strauss

f) Wagner

1. f; 2. b; 3. a; 4. d.

Spring Production Raffle Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the ONS Spring Production Raffle: 1st Prize (two services from Kennedy's Auto Pro) – John Walter 2nd Prize (Royal Doulton china"Harmony" pattern set) – Rob and Renie Isner 3rd Prize (one night courtesy stay, Evening Sail B&B, Pictou) – Anne Place