On Saturday night, we opened Fidelio to great success. I enjoyed Andreas Baesler’s production, as he makes Beethoven's piece of 1805 relevant to today’s audiences. It was masterfully led by Adrianne Pieczonka as Leonore. She carries the cast from beginning to end with her vocal brilliance, and wonderful sense of the character, she is joined by Mats Almgren (Rocco), Gidon Saks (Don Pizarro), Virginia Hatfield (Marzelline), Adam Luther (Jaquino), Zdenek Plech (Don Fernando) and Jon Ketilsson (Florestan). Gregor Bühl inspires a real Beethoven sound to our orchestra.

It is always sad to lose a singer for a production and I regret not being able to do the series with Jon Villars. It is always a difficult task to find a replacement at the last minute, and especially in such challenging repertoire. We have been fortunate to find two very strong singers for the role of Florestan to help us through this situation, Jon Ketilsson and Richard Margison.

Jon Ketilsson did a wonderful job in our first two performances, despite not rehearsing with the orchestra in advance and the cast adapted well to all of the surrounding changes. It is wonderful to have Mr. Ketilsson with us for the first half of the series. I am also delighted that we will have Richard Margison with us to close the run. This will be Mr. Margison’s debut at the Four Seasons Centre, and we will be pleased to have this eminent Canadian artist with us.