Sir Novelty Fashion
Senior Member
Tess Kalinowski
Staff Reporter
Richard Bradshaw, conductor and general director of the Canadian Opera Co., has died suddenly, leaving the company in shock.
He had a reputation for never accepting no as an answer. As a result he will be remembered as the driving force behind Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
The opera house at the corner of Queen St. W. and University Ave., designed by architect Jack Diamond, opened last year and an amphitheatre there bears Bradshaw’s name.
A spokesperson for the opera company confirmed today that staff were shocked by the 63-year-old silver-haired conductor’s death Wednesday night as he return home from a vacation.
The COC has issued a statement saying that it is deeply saddened by Bradshaw’s passing.
"In our sorrow, we pay tribute to the inspiration and leadership he played in the cultural landscape of his adopted country," said COC board president David Ferguson.
"We are grieving and we will miss him terribly."
In his biography published on its web site, the opera company said Bradshaw first came to the COC as guest conductor in 1988. The following year, he became Chief Conductor and Head of Music, a position he held from 1989 to 1994, when he was appointed Artistic Director.
In January 1998, he was named General Director, the first musician to lead the company since Ettore Mazzoleni in the late 1950s.
Born in Rugby, England, in 1944, Bradshaw received an honours degree in English at London University in 1965. He studied conducting privately with Sir Adrian Boult, subsequently receiving a Gulbenkian Conducting Fellowship to work with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the supervision of Sir Charles Groves. He also worked as assistant to Sir John Pritchard.
In a career that took him around the world, Bradshaw conducted a wide-ranging repertoire of both operatic and orchestral music. He was Chorus Director at the Glyndebourne Festival from 1975–1977 and Resident Conductor at San Francisco Opera from 1977–1989.
He frequently conducted for most of the major international opera companies, symphony orchestras and music festivals.
In his 18 years with the Canadian company, he conducted more than 60 operas. Alongside traditional operatic fare, he introduced cutting edge COC productions such as “Bluebeard’s Castle/Erwartung,†“Salome,†“Mario and the Magician,†“Jenùfa†and “Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms.â€
Bradshaw placed major emphasis on the theatrical as well as musical values of opera. He attracted from the world of film and theatre such innovative directors as Robert Lepage, Atom Egoyan and François Girard.
The double bill of Bartók’s “Bluebeard’s Castle†and “Schoenberg’s Erwartung,†directed by Lepage, set the standard for this type of collaboration and brought the opera company enormous international acclaim and its first invitation to the Edinburgh Festival where it received two prestigious awards.
Atom Egoyan’s 1996 production of “Salome†and François Girard’s 1997 production of “Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms†drew large audiences of younger people attracted to opera for the first time.
Girard’s production received eight Dora Mavor Moore Awards confirming Bradshaw’s ambitious goal of making the COC “the best theatre in town.â€
In August 2002, the COC was invited back to the Edinburgh Festival and triumphed with its production of “Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms.â€
Bradshaw strengthened the musical side of the COC. The COC Orchestra and Chorus have both grown in reputation and are acknowledged as the artistic backbone of the company.
Under his leadership, the COC took on an impressive schedule of concerts and recordings, in collaboration with the CBC, Harbourfront Centre and the Toronto Centre for the Arts.
Bradshaw established an ongoing recording partnership with CBC Records, the first in the COC’s history. Since 1995, a series of CDs has been released and more are planned. Featuring major Canadian singers such as Russell Braun, Benjamin Butterfield, Richard Margison, Wendy Nielsen, Brett Polegato, Gary Relyea and Michael Schade, the CDs have been best-sellers in Canada.
Bradshaw can also be heard with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on the CBC recording of the Millennium Opera Gala at Roy Thomson Hall and with Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and members of the COC Ensemble in the soundtrack to the Rhombus Inc. film “Don Giovanni: Leporello’s Revenge.â€
The greatest challenge of Bradshaw’s tenure at the COC was the building of a new opera house for the company. Under the Canadian Opera House Corp., the architectural firm A. J. Diamond, Donald Schmitt and Co. was selected to design the new house at the corner of Queen St. W. and University Ave. in downtown Toronto.
The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts opened its doors in June 2006 to critical acclaim and, in September, Bradshaw conducted the first complete cycle in Canada of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen†in the new opera house.
Richard Bradshaw was a Senior Fellow of Massey College, was named 2006/2007 Distinguished Visiting Fellow of Massey College, Distinguished Visitor in Music and recipient of the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa, University of Toronto; Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music; Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters of the Republic of France and Member of the Order of Ontario.
He leaves his wife Diana and two children, Jenny and James.
A funeral will be held next Tuesday at 11 a.m. at St. James Cathedral in downtown Toronto.
Staff Reporter
Richard Bradshaw, conductor and general director of the Canadian Opera Co., has died suddenly, leaving the company in shock.
He had a reputation for never accepting no as an answer. As a result he will be remembered as the driving force behind Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
The opera house at the corner of Queen St. W. and University Ave., designed by architect Jack Diamond, opened last year and an amphitheatre there bears Bradshaw’s name.
A spokesperson for the opera company confirmed today that staff were shocked by the 63-year-old silver-haired conductor’s death Wednesday night as he return home from a vacation.
The COC has issued a statement saying that it is deeply saddened by Bradshaw’s passing.
"In our sorrow, we pay tribute to the inspiration and leadership he played in the cultural landscape of his adopted country," said COC board president David Ferguson.
"We are grieving and we will miss him terribly."
In his biography published on its web site, the opera company said Bradshaw first came to the COC as guest conductor in 1988. The following year, he became Chief Conductor and Head of Music, a position he held from 1989 to 1994, when he was appointed Artistic Director.
In January 1998, he was named General Director, the first musician to lead the company since Ettore Mazzoleni in the late 1950s.
Born in Rugby, England, in 1944, Bradshaw received an honours degree in English at London University in 1965. He studied conducting privately with Sir Adrian Boult, subsequently receiving a Gulbenkian Conducting Fellowship to work with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the supervision of Sir Charles Groves. He also worked as assistant to Sir John Pritchard.
In a career that took him around the world, Bradshaw conducted a wide-ranging repertoire of both operatic and orchestral music. He was Chorus Director at the Glyndebourne Festival from 1975–1977 and Resident Conductor at San Francisco Opera from 1977–1989.
He frequently conducted for most of the major international opera companies, symphony orchestras and music festivals.
In his 18 years with the Canadian company, he conducted more than 60 operas. Alongside traditional operatic fare, he introduced cutting edge COC productions such as “Bluebeard’s Castle/Erwartung,†“Salome,†“Mario and the Magician,†“Jenùfa†and “Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms.â€
Bradshaw placed major emphasis on the theatrical as well as musical values of opera. He attracted from the world of film and theatre such innovative directors as Robert Lepage, Atom Egoyan and François Girard.
The double bill of Bartók’s “Bluebeard’s Castle†and “Schoenberg’s Erwartung,†directed by Lepage, set the standard for this type of collaboration and brought the opera company enormous international acclaim and its first invitation to the Edinburgh Festival where it received two prestigious awards.
Atom Egoyan’s 1996 production of “Salome†and François Girard’s 1997 production of “Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms†drew large audiences of younger people attracted to opera for the first time.
Girard’s production received eight Dora Mavor Moore Awards confirming Bradshaw’s ambitious goal of making the COC “the best theatre in town.â€
In August 2002, the COC was invited back to the Edinburgh Festival and triumphed with its production of “Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms.â€
Bradshaw strengthened the musical side of the COC. The COC Orchestra and Chorus have both grown in reputation and are acknowledged as the artistic backbone of the company.
Under his leadership, the COC took on an impressive schedule of concerts and recordings, in collaboration with the CBC, Harbourfront Centre and the Toronto Centre for the Arts.
Bradshaw established an ongoing recording partnership with CBC Records, the first in the COC’s history. Since 1995, a series of CDs has been released and more are planned. Featuring major Canadian singers such as Russell Braun, Benjamin Butterfield, Richard Margison, Wendy Nielsen, Brett Polegato, Gary Relyea and Michael Schade, the CDs have been best-sellers in Canada.
Bradshaw can also be heard with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on the CBC recording of the Millennium Opera Gala at Roy Thomson Hall and with Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and members of the COC Ensemble in the soundtrack to the Rhombus Inc. film “Don Giovanni: Leporello’s Revenge.â€
The greatest challenge of Bradshaw’s tenure at the COC was the building of a new opera house for the company. Under the Canadian Opera House Corp., the architectural firm A. J. Diamond, Donald Schmitt and Co. was selected to design the new house at the corner of Queen St. W. and University Ave. in downtown Toronto.
The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts opened its doors in June 2006 to critical acclaim and, in September, Bradshaw conducted the first complete cycle in Canada of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen†in the new opera house.
Richard Bradshaw was a Senior Fellow of Massey College, was named 2006/2007 Distinguished Visiting Fellow of Massey College, Distinguished Visitor in Music and recipient of the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa, University of Toronto; Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music; Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters of the Republic of France and Member of the Order of Ontario.
He leaves his wife Diana and two children, Jenny and James.
A funeral will be held next Tuesday at 11 a.m. at St. James Cathedral in downtown Toronto.
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