(Canscene) — Of the Big Three permanent cultural Toronto attractions, the first – past -the- post official opening June 10 last year of the Canadian Opera Company’s new home proved a landmark in Ontario’s cultural scene.

The COC has announced a record breaking opera season with an average attendance of 99 percent.

The COC has also broken another record by already surpassing last season’s subscription totals with gross revenue of over $9.5 million and over 93,000 seats sold to date for the 2007/08 season with 25 percent still available for public sale.

With its first season in its new home, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, the COC had a historic year by mounting Richard Wagner’s tetralogy the Ring Cycle plus six mainstage productions: Così fan tutte, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Faust, Luisa Miller, Elektra, and La Traviata. In total, 137,000 patrons attended 67 COC performances including the Ring Cycle. Overall ticket related revenues grossed close to $18 million.

This inaugural year was brought to a successful close with 11 performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s popular La Traviata, eight performances of Richard Strauss’s drama Elektra and 10 performances of Verdi’s Luisa Miller. Over 59,000 people attended the three spring productions generating combined gross ticket sales of over $5.6 million, while La Traviata achieved a first day of sale record of $250,000. This season also saw 8,000 $20 tickets sold, with 7,500 of them sold to patrons under 30.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 12:31 am and is filed under Canscene News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.