Several years ago, James Wright woke up from a night's sleep and realized Vancouver Opera's next production of The Magic Flute had to be told through the west coast First Nations' perspective.
The company, of which Wright is the general director, spent almost three years in research to mount the opera in 2007 - 216 years after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote it. "We began very slowly and carefully," Wright recalled. "We knew that we could not do this without an incredible partnership with First Nation people."
An advisory council was established and permission was granted from native bands to use some of their language in the show. As well, some of the original narrative was changed to reflect a deeper respect towards women than in Mozart's piece.
Part of that process involved a lengthy marketing campaign, an outreach program that Wright calls "community engagement strategies," to bring Vancouver Opera closer to the general public.
A series of talks, called Where Cultures Meet, with the First People's Heritage, Language and Culture Council explored such topics as cultural appropriation and intellectual property in the arts, and the production toured B.C. and into schools, including schools on Indian reserves.
The lectures, forums and performances around The Magic Flute, which will be remounted by Vancouver Opera next season, will be the subject of Wright's PowerPoint presentation at Place des Arts in Coquitlam on Thursday (May 17).
And he'll also speak about the company's past community work such as the successful 2010 Canadian premiere of Nixon in China - during Vancouver Opera's golden anniversary season - and the 2004 production of Madama Butterfly.
For the former, Wright interviewed many retired diplomats - including former senator Jack Austin, who was appointed by then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau to represent B.C. - as well as staff from the Asia-Pacific Foundation and UBC Asian Studies to put together a series of programs about US-Canadian-Chinese foreign policy. Trudeau's son, Alexandre, also came out to speak about his father's book and Margaret McMillian, author of Nixon in China, did a reading.
The comprehensive series also included music and dance performances and film screenings.
For Aida in the 2011/12 season, the outreach effort focused on women in wartime and last year's La Boheme posed the question: Who would Mimi be today? while the Madama Butterfly series involved 22 events such as Japanese tea ceremonies and even a cross-dressing performance from Toronto.
"Usually, we don't curate these these things," Wright said, with a laugh. "We put an invitation out to organizations and say, 'This is our upcoming production. If you have something to add to this conversation, come on in.'"
Not all of its outreach forums are serious, he said. For its 2007/8 production of The Italian Girl in Algiers, a comedy, Vancouver Opera focused on Italian girls, Italian movie stars and Italian culture.
"The point," Wright said, "is to engage a wider community and some people that come [to the lectures] may or may not come to the opera. It's more about placing us as a community resource, as some body in the Metro area that uses art to talk about other things."
Tickets for James Wright's presentation on Thursday, May 17 at 7 p.m. are $5, plus HST. Call 604-664-1636 or visit the Maillardville facility at 1122 Brunette Ave., Coquitlam. Wright concludes the Place des Arts' salon speaker series for this season. Next year's speakers include Bill Millard, artistic managing director of the Arts Club Theatre, author Carmen Aguirre and Dale Barlthrop, concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Visit placedesarts.ca for more information.
