New Discoveries 2012

Originally from Whitehorse, soprano Betty Allison grew up on Vancouver Island and attended the University of Victoria, graduating with degrees in both music and education.  While in Victoria she sang with the POV chorus making her debut in Julius Caesar. She joined the Canadian Opera Company's Ensemble Studio in 2006, making her mainstage debut singing Annina in La Traviata.  She has since performed many additional roles with the company, including Fiordiligi in Cosi fan Tutte, Donna Elvira in Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni, the Turnspit in Rusalka, and Mona in Swoon.  She has covered numerous roles for the COC, most notably Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and the Title role in Rusalka.  In the summer of 2007 she sang the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with the Centre for Opera in Sulmona Italy (COSI), returning the following year to perform excerpts from Cosi fan Tutte.  Equally at home in oratorio, Ms. Allison's concert repertoire includes Haydn's Creation, Dvorak's Te Deum, and Handel's Messiah.  This past summer she performed the title role in Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen in an exciting new production at the Banff Centre.

Baritone Alexander Hajek, a recent graduate of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, debuts with the COC this season as Morales in Carmen and the Third Japanese Envoy in Stravinsky’s The Nightingale. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music where, on full scholarship, studying with Daniel Ferro, he completed his Bachelor and Master of Music Degrees. He toured extensively with St. Michael’s Choir School of Toronto and while at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Mr. Hajek sang with several Toronto- based ensembles including the Mendelssohn Choir, Glenn Gould Ensemble, Opera in Concert, the Palestrina Choir and several summers with the Ontario Youth Choir.  With a voice of ‘velvet beauty, warm tone and eloquent phrasing’, Mr. Hajek has appeared at international venues and command performances for Presidents, Prime Ministers, Pontiffs John Paul II and Benedict (World Youth Day celebrations, Germany and the Vatican).   Concert highlights include ‘Opera’s Greatest’ (Brott Music Festival with the National Academy Orchestra of Canada); Messiah (Brott Music Festival, Hamilton) and with the Bronx Opera (New York); Mozart’s Mass In C Minor; the Requiem’s of Fauré, Duruflé, Brahms, and Mozart; Ziesl’s Ebraico; and Stravinsky’s Mass(both at Carnegie Hall). Mr. Hajek continues to give recitals in New York, Toronto and Europe.  His awards include first prize in the Louis Quilico Competition (Ontario Arts Council Foundation), the Todd Duncan Legacy Award (National Opera Association), the Lyndon-Woodside Memorial (The Oratorio Society of New York), the Woodmere competition, the Liederkranz Competition (Art Song Division), and a finalist in The Licia-Albanese Puccini Foundation and Palm Beach Competitions.