We spent the last two weeks discovering Toronto, Quebec City and Montreal with two friends from Paris. It is actually great to be a tourist in your own city and country. We certainly got to know our new home with different eyes and did things we would never have taken the time to do by ourselves.

We finished our holiday with an amazing weekend on an island in Georgian Bay. It was the first time we spent time outside the city and we were stunned by the beauty of the region. We will certainly want to discover more of it and the rest of Canada in the course of the coming season.

Today I am back to work. And to the blog, of course.

It was an intense first day with a long Development meeting in the morning, a lunch with our Managing Director Rob Lamb, not enough time with my assistant (as always) and a visit to the Opera House to discuss several topics with our technical team.

It is still relatively calm in the company, but the young artists of our Ensemble Studio (including three new singers) are back and in class with Tim Noble and Margaret Singer since last Thursday. Next week we will already start rehearsals for the revival of Butterfly which will open our season on 26th September. There will be 15 performances until 3rd November and tickets are on sale at www.coc.ca.