Happy New Year, dear loyal and patient readers.

I don't really believe in New Year's resolutions, but rather in habit building. And since I've fallen out of the habit to post blog entries over the past few months I thought the New Year would be a great time to start again and I will do my best to post here as regularly as possible.

I've been in New York for the past few days to get some time off and meet with artists, but first and foremost to attend the opening of the Met's new production of The Enchanted Island, a baroque evening combining music by Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau and a few other composers with a new text by Jeremy Sams, inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (who were also in charge of the magnificent production of Satyagraha which I saw earlier this season) and conducted by the eminent baroque expert William Christie. What sounds quite complicated on paper actually was a fairly entertaining evening, but I'm still wondering whether I would have preferred to see one of Handel's, Vivaldi's or Rameau's master operas rather than a mix of a few of them (I'm thinking of Goethe's "wer vieles bringt, wird manchem etwas bringen..."). It certainly was an experience that I wouldn't have wanted to miss, with a cast that couldn't have been more stellar: Placido Domingo (still going strong), Luca Pisaroni, Joyce DiDonato, David Daniels, Danielle de Niese, Elizabeth de Shong (our COC Cenerentola last season) as well as Canadians (and Lindemann Young Artists) Layla Claire and Elliot Madore, in his house debut. So much good singing.

At the COC, we're already in staging rehearsals for both winter productions, Tosca and L'amour de loin. Later this week, our orchestra will return and we will be back on the stage of our Four Seasons Centre. Getting busy again.