BURLINGTON CULTURAL MAPPING

Southern Ontario Lyric Opera is a young, vibrant and dynamic Opera company, recently launched to bring the rich musical and visual tapestry of Opera to communities within Southern Ontario, and specifically Burlington.

The Founder and Artistic Director of SOLO, Sabatino Vacca, is an established and accomplished musician, recognized primarily for his role as Conductor to three Southern Ontario orchestras.  Sabatino’s vision is to provide and promote accessibility of operatic works, on an affordable, wide and inclusive scale.

For those who are fervent about Opera, there is little opportunity to indulge their passion locally.  Travel to professional venues can be challenging and ticket costs prohibitive, placing the experience out of reach of devoted fans and novices alike.  Sadly, within this climate, Opera can only remain a distant and elitist pursuit.

SOLO’s vision is to promote opera and firmly re-establish a place in the community for this valuable, exciting and multi-faceted art form.  Our mission is to see the appreciation of opera grow and flourish, through a unique offering of classical operatic events, at a level which is accessible and affordable to all.  Working from a base in the Hamilton/Burlington area, potential patrons would be drawn from anywhere along the Niagara Peninsula to Toronto.

In June of last year members of the SOLO chorus were engaged to perform a flash mob at the Festitalia Italian Heritage Awards.  In September, SOLO performed two concerts, featuring popular opera arias.  One in Hamilton, in celebration of Festitalia’s 40th Anniversary, and the other at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre.  In December, the chorus performed a holiday program at Villa Italia, as part of their community outreach.

These productions were very well received, generating a great deal of interest and serving only to strengthen our belief in the SOLO vision.  Due to the success of our initial productions, we are now focused on turning our hopes and dreams for the future into reality. In keeping with our vision of promoting an appreciation of opera, we also plan to develop education programs for the public in the form of interactive lectures and informal talks.  We will work with local schools to tailor youth programs, and also envision the formation of a Children’s Opera Chorus, to further encourage and foster young talent in the community. We are passionate about SOLO, our fledgling company, and we are, unequivocally, committed to succeed.  Our initial successes have demonstrated that we have access to an excellent blend of talented artists and musicians.