Manitoba’s opera artists will be well-represented as one of the most prestigious Canadian opera awards are handed out in Toronto tonight.
The Ruby Awards, presented by Opera Canada magazine, have been handed out every year since 2000, and have honoured some of the best and brightest opera artists and creators from across the country. This year, two of the five awards will be awarded to artists with a Manitoba connection. Director Michael Cavanagh will receive a posthumous honour, while and the artists of Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North will receive the Change Makers award.
For Suzanne Steele, the librettist behind Li Keur, the honour comes with some mixed feelings. “I think any notice that we have in the Canadian opera community is a great thing,” she said in a conversation with Morning Light host Nolan Kehler.
"I actually have been surprised that the phones have been really silent, actually,” she admitted. “I feel in Canada, we tend to only want to premiere and then we drop them. We have people asking all the time, saying ‘Oh, I wanted to be there. When is it coming?’ Li Keur really deserves to be seen across the country.”
Steele, along with composers Neil Weisensel and Alex Kusturok, spent over six years producing the opera, including creating a sprawling language database for singers performing in Indigenous languages, and revising a score for over 250 performers and crew members, which came from a wide spectrum of Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds.
Steele hopes that this acknowledgement will be the beginning of a surge of productions that speak to Indigenous experiences. “These are beautiful stories we have to tell,” she says. “We need to actually perform our pieces more than once. I think the time is right... let’s encourage.”
Steele and the cast of Li Keur will be honoured alongside Winnipeg-born director Michael Cavanagh. The celebrated director who led a dozen productions at Manitoba Opera and was later named artistic director of the Royal Swedish Opera in 2020, passed away this past March after battling leptomeningeal cancer at the age of 62.
“Mike leaves an indelible, wonderful, vibrant mark on the world of opera,” said Larry Desrochers, general manager of Manitoba Opera on social media, a legacy that will be celebrated at the awards on Monday night.
