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IN NUVO

Originally commissioned in 1967 for Canada’s centennial celebrations, a new production of the opera Louis Riel will take the stage this spring in celebration of the country’s 150th anniversary.

Twenty-five-year-old soprano Simone Osborne has just finished eight performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, each time stopping the show by singing “O mio babbino caro” in the Canadian Opera Company’s recent production of Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi. “I’ve been there,” she says, laughing.

The curtain rises on Greta Hodgkinson, principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada. It’s the ballerina’s 20th season with the Toronto-based company, and there she is, lying on her stomach onstage at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, long brown hair braided as tightly as the ribbons on her pink satin pointe shoes, nose in a book.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: Jack Diamond has designed buildings throughout the world, but the front parlour of his home in Toronto’s Moore Park neighbourhood isn’t lined with pictures of his opera houses, city halls, or university buildings; instead, there’s a collection of watercolours he has painted over the course of his long career.

William Thorsell, director and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum, is changing the way Canadians see—and are seen.