Today, troupe is both an artistic success and a viable commercial company
Opera Atelier, a Toronto arts organization founded by Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, have stuck to a tight, well-organized business formula: mounting operas from the 17th and 18th centuries, often rediscovering and recreating long-forgotten arias and ballets for contemporary audiences in Canada and overseas.Bruce Zinger
The couple put on 12 performances a year. They rent Toronto’s landmark Elgin Theatre, which seats about 1,500, for a week’s run each fall and each spring. Here is a scene from Opera Atelier's 2004 production of Persée starring tenor Cyril Auvity.Bruce Zinger
A shot from a dress rehearsal of Armide, starring Jack Rennie as Love and Peggy Kriha Dye as Armide. While Opera Atelier sometimes mounts performances of well-known operas such as Mozart’s The Magic Flute, more often it focuses on resurrecting works by composers who are now little known, such as the 17th century’s Jean-Baptiste Lully.Bruce Zinger
Here, Peggy Kriha Dye and Olivier Laquerre appear in Opera Atelier's 2009 production of The Coronation of Poppea, a 17th-century Italian opera by Claudio Monteverdi. Early on, Mr. Pynkoski and Ms. Zingg discovered that there was a trove of classical music and notated dance that was little known or completely forgotten. “Some of it was lost after the French Revolution. The idea that there is this whole repertoire, virtually untouched, fascinated us, ” Mr. Pynkoski says. Why not find it and perform it?Bruce Zinger
Like most high-end arts companies, Atelier has had its ups and downs. “We got in way over our heads before we even knew we were over our heads,” says Ms. Zingg. In the early years they were supported by Ms. Zingg’s father, who was a doctor, and by people such as producer/impresario David Mirvish. They credit their stability as well to a strong board of directors, “who are not just friends and family,” as Ms. Zingg puts it. “They ask us really tough questions, and we have to answer them.”Bruce Zinger