What: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Where: Royal Theatre
When: April 14, 16, 22 at 8 p.m.; April 24 at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets: $25 to $135 (250-386-6121)
Unless you’re an avid follower of Canadian opera, you might not know the name Tom Diamond.
But you might recognize his face from something called Bathroom Divas.
Bathroom Divas was an award-winning reality TV series that ran on Bravo! Canada for two seasons. The show chronicled the exploits of fledgling opera singers, who were trained and assessed by Diamond and two other judges.
A veteran opera director who wears horn-rimmed glasses and a single gold earring, Diamond is in Victoria to oversee Pacific Opera Victoria’s production of Benjamin Britten’s 1960 opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This marks the seventh time he has directed for the POV.
It was soprano/comedian Mary Lou Fallis who invited Diamond to join Bathroom Divas, a show she produced and co-judged. At first Diamond wasn’t keen, worrying that appearances on something so déclassé as reality TV might damage his opera career.
“I said: ‘Mary Lou, if I say yes to this I’ll never work again. They won’t take me seriously,’ ” Diamond said this week over coffee.
She assured him the show, which took opera seriously while having fun with it, wouldn’t be detrimental. Diamond signed up. The national exposure led to him being recognized regularly in public — an atypical experience for any opera director.
It happened once in an airplane. A woman stuffing her luggage in the overhead compartment met his eye.
“She said: ‘You’re fabulous.’ I said: ‘Madame, who do you think I am?’ She said: ‘You’re the guy from that opera show.’ ”
Another time, Diamond was sitting in the steam room at his gym. He noticed a man staring at him.
“This guy is looking at me. I’m thinking, what’s this? He said: ‘You’re the guy from that opera show.’ I go: ‘Yes I am!’ ”
Diamond’s career path spans internationally lauded productions for the Canadian Opera Company as well as opera companies in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary and the U.S. This marks the second time he has directed Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, an opera not often staged in this country.
In 2014, Diamond directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Opera on the Avalon in St. John’s, N.L. That production helped him land the Victoria gig. By happenstance, Robert Holliston, POV’s principal coach, attended Opera on the Avalon’s production because he had a friend in the show. Impressed, Holliston mentioned the direction to POV’s artistic director, Timothy Vernon, who had already been considering Diamond for the Victoria production.
Due in part to budget constraints, the Opera on the Avalon version used a simple all-white set that served as a backdrop for projections. The POV is employing similar visuals. Diamond describes as it a “kind of fantasy playground for fairies.”
After a decade as a theatre director, Diamond entered the world of opera in his late 20s. At the time, Canadian Opera Company was seeking an entry-level director. A friend suggested that Diamond audition, as he also had a background as a classical pianist.
“I said: ‘You know, I don’t think so. I think opera is pretty boring.’ My friend said: ‘That’s why you should do it.’ ”
Already intrigued by the notion of doing larger-scale theatre, Diamond decided to give it a whirl despite his unfamiliarity with opera. The Canadian Opera Company chose him from more than 30 applicants. His apprenticeship lasted a year, during which he served as assistant director on all the COC productions. It proved an invaluable training ground.
One of his most remarkable experiences was working on a production of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino. It was directed by John Copley, the British opera legend who had directed for the Royal Opera (Covent Garden) and Sadler’s Wells.
When Diamond met him, Copley was having his coif trimmed by the COC’s hair and wig department.
“The first thing he said, this old opera queen, he said: ‘Oh, you’re not from the theat-ah are you?’ I said: ‘Mr. Copley, I am.’ He said: ‘Oh, I hate all you theat-ah directors.’ ”
Far from being deterred, Diamond became fascinated with Copley, a raconteur with a vast knowledge of opera.
“I thought if [opera] actually works for me, I want to be this guy.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is no easy walk through fairyland. Britten’s difficult score, while atmospheric and accessible, is dense and ever-shifting. Vernon, who conducts this opera, says the challenge for the singers and orchestra (as well as a 19-member boys’ choir) is navigating the unrelenting changes in tempos and rhythms.
Diamond agreed it’s not easy.
“The work is hugely dense and concentrated. It’s not like directing bel canto opera, where the [melody] lines are so long,” he said.
Both are passionate about A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Vernon deems it “an absolute masterwork, no question.” Diamond particularly admires how cleverly Britten and librettist Peter Pears distilled Shakespeare’s play into a cohesive work that succeeds dramatically and musically.
“They kept all the good stuff,” Diamond said, “and turned it into this amazing opera.”