The conductor Timothy Vernon will step down next year as artistic director of Pacific Opera, the company he joined as co-founder in 1979.
He will conduct three operas this season.
‘I’ve got 10 years of energy and ideas and plans left,’ he said.
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Vernon is a talented musician and has maintained high musical standards with Pacific Opera. It is a great shame he never got an decent orchestra somewhere. I heard him conduct a brilliant War Requiem in Ottawa.
A glance at Pacific Opera Victoria’s operaphobic website makes clear why Timothy Vernon — white, male, capable, experienced and irrepressibly in love with the art form — is no longer deemed suited to the position of artistic director:
“At a time when we’re questioning assumptions about the portrayal of women and minorities in all forms of cultural expression, it’s also time to think more critically about the world of opera – an art form essentially sustained by relics and values of past centuries.
“Whose stories are we telling today and who gets to tell them? What role is race playing in who you see on stage and in the audience?
“How does opera stay relevant in today’s world? Join the conversation with the operatic movers and shakers of the 21st century as they share their thoughts in frank conversations about what has to change for opera to survive.”