Vancouver Opera achieves surplus and appoints new board members

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      The Vancouver Opera is celebrating two new names on its diverse board of directors as well as a second consecutive year of being well into the black.

      In audited financial statements presented at this week's annual general meeting, the company reported a surplus of $134,663 on an operating budget of $9.75 million, for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2016. It means the VO now has an accumulated deficit of $657,266 as it embarks on an ambitious restructuring that includes a first opera festival in the late spring and a new director--Kim Gaynor.

      It also welcomed onto its board Nika Collison (Jisgang), who belongs to the Ts’aahl clan of the Haida Nation and has spent two decades working in contemporary Haida art and culture. She's served as curator of the Haida Gwaii Museum at Kay Llnagaay since 2000 and works as an independent consultant.

      Judy Halbert

       

      Judy Halbert also joins the board, bringing her experience as a faculty member at UBC faculty of education. She's worked as a teacher, principal, district leader, and policy advisor with the Ministry of Education in the areas of innovative leadership, accountability and Aboriginal education.

      The opera's first show this season will be Hansel and Gretel on November 24 at the Vancouver Playhouse, featuring design by Calgary's celebrated Old Trout Puppet workshop and Scottish maestro Alexander Prior.

      In January, VO joins the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival and Il Centro | Italian Cultural Centre in presenting the Canadian premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s
      Macbeth by the South African performance company Third World Bunfight.

      And the inaugural Vancouver Opera Festival takes over the Queen Elizabeth Theatre plaza from April 28 to May 13, 2017 with three productions (Dead Man Walking, Otello, and The Marriage of Figaro) alongside concerts, video installations, and much more.

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