There wasn't a critic in the house yesterday as the Canadian Opera Company announced $23-million in pledges at the official groundbreaking ceremony in downtown Toronto for its long-awaited opera house.
The standing-room-only crowd of close to 600 supporters cheered and applauded as if they were at a performance of Madama Butterfly instead of a fundraising announcement. Mind you, there was the premiere of The Opera House Fanfare, composed for the occasion by J. Scott Irvine, dedicated to general director Richard Bradshaw and performed by the COC's brass section.
The auditorium will be named R. Fraser Elliott Hall in recognition of a $10-million gift from Fraser Elliott, 82, a founding partner of the Bay Street legal firm Stikeman Elliott LLP, and a long-standing supporter of the COC. The facility itself, which is scheduled to open in June, 2006, is called the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in acknowledgment of the $20-million already pledged by Isadore Sharpe of the hotel chain.
One of the more amusing moments, in the midst of congratulatory speeches from enough politicians to boast a fair-sized caucus, came when Heritage Minister Sheila Copps twice mistakenly thanked CanWest Global chair Israel Asper for his generosity to the opera house. She made a quick recovery when she quipped, "We need a donation from Izzy Asper too."
The other $13-million represents donations "to date" from the board of the COC, according to capital-campaign chair Arthur Scace. In his speech, he said he was overwhelmed by the generosity of the board of directors, of which he is chair, saying that every member had contributed. He appealed to the people of Toronto to "contribute in whatever way you can to make this building yours."
At least one wag took Scace's plea to heart and shouted, "Where's the cheque, Mel?" when Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman got up to make his remarks. "It's in the mail," Lastman retorted, without mentioning that the city has yet to make a contribution to the opera house, designed by architect Jack Diamond, that he boasted will be "the jewel in the crown of Toronto's vibrant arts community" and have a $40-million annual impact on the city.
The building of the opera house, which Bradshaw has likened to "the 30 Years War," has had many dashed hopes and false starts over the decades. Benefactor Elliott, looking frail and walking slowly with a cane, referred in an interview to the search for a site for the aborted Ballet Opera House back in the 1980s.
He can remember walking the streets with a small committee of opera lovers. "We ended up at Bay and Wellesley, but it got sufficiently complicated and expensive that it got out of reach financially. That is why it failed," he said. "We ran out of gas because we ran out of money." Despite the collapse of that project, Elliott said he never lost faith and he always believed "this day would come."
The sunny, warm day was a good omen, but there will have to be plenty more days like yesterday if the COC is to make its $150-million fundraising target, with construction slated to start on Monday.
Besides the $43-million in private money, the opera house has been given $25-million from the federal government through Infrastructure Canada and the site (valued at $31-million) from the province of Ontario's SuperBuild program.
Sandra Martin