music by Alexander Zemlinsky/Giacomo Puccini, directed by Catherine Malfitano, Canadian Opera Company, ON
conductor: Sir Andrew Davis, costumes: Terese Wadden, lighting: David Martin Jacques
cast: Alan Held, Gun-Brit Barkmin, Michael König, Barbara Dever, Donato Di Stefano, René Barbera, Peter McGillivray, Rihab Chaieb, Adam Luther, Craig Irvin, Gabriel Gough, Simone Osborne, Doug MacNaughton, Philippe Sly, Neil Craighead, Valerian Ruminski
Dora Award winner, Outstanding Set Design
5 Dora Award nominations, including Outstanding Production
additional photos provided by Michael Cooper and Gary Beechey, copyright protected images
"The COC has been mounting the most visually arresting theatre in Toronto. With two gorgeous productions opening this month, I'd like to tip my hat to the COC's recent slate of remarkable set designers. Gianni Schicchi is the latest COC production to dazzle. A hoarder's mountain of furniture, art, golf clubs, books, lampshades, and the like– designed by Wilson Chin– looms in the background. Other visual delights (I won't spoil them for you) await the audience as the family climbs and paws the heap. Eventually the claustrophobic death chamber gives way to an expansive beauty, and yet the hoard remains, stubbornly holding its ground in the new light." – David Ritter, The Toronto Review of Books
"The decaying Florentine villa is beautifully designed by Wilson Chin." – Christopher Hoile, Opera News
"The handsome parlor was designed by Wilson Chin. For Schicchi, the set becomes a joke about the Italian predilection for refurbishment, with household junk piled high among drop cloths as the blue light of a TV screen dominates Schicchi's death-sofa-bed." – Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg News
"Wilson Chin makes the house something right out of Hoarder and providing a final coup de grace that is pure joy." – Richard Ouzounian, Toronto Star
"Wilson Chin's set played a equal part in the night's success, featuring a towering structure of junk. The act closes as Rinuccio dramatically pulls down a curtain and motions for the back wall to be lifted, revealing Florence stretching the whole stage and adding one final awe." – Megan Leahy, Plaid Magazine
