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From: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...Entertainment/
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RENAISSANCE CITY PART 1
People behind the cultural revival: a series
Richard Bradshaw, the Canadian Opera Company's director, reveals his long-range strategy for the group's new home -- and playing it safe is not in the cards, ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN reports as we begin our week-long series on the people behind Toronto's cultural renaissance

ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN
The Globe and Mail, Monday, April 10
He's not convinced the colour of the seat cushions matches the swatch he selected, and he still wonders about the intentions of his most fickle donor, the federal government. But with just 10 weeks to go until the first public concert at the new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, Richard Bradshaw has no fear of buyer's remorse.

After all, the essentials have turned out just as he insisted they should. He always said the Canadian Opera Company needed an auditorium of 2,000 seats with an orchestra pit large enough for 100 players, and that's what he's getting.

"On the essentials, I was pretty intransigent," said the silver-haired, English-born conductor, sprawled amiably in a chair in his Toronto office. The essentials also included top-quality acoustics and unimpeded sightlines.

Read the other installments in the series:

Matthew Teitelbaum: The Curator
Peter Simon and Robert Sirman: The Educators
Helen Gardiner: The Collector
William Thorsell: The Visionary
Not many years ago, there seemed to be many obstacles blocking Bradshaw's vision. There were doubts about whether the money could be raised, especially after the National Ballet of Canada decided not to participate as a partner. There were questions as to whether the COC could afford to play in a hall that is 1,400 seats smaller than the Hummingbird Centre.

There were also unpleasant memories of the last attempt to build a home for opera and ballet in Toronto, in the eighties, which failed when government support crumbled.

When Bradshaw took over the company in 1993, there were doubters. The former organist and itinerate conductor had come to the COC in 1989 as head of music, and was bumped up to the general director's job after Brian Dickie's abrupt departure. Bradshaw had never run a company of any size, and the timing was terrible: The COC had just taken a box-office beating with an ill-advised production of Carmen; it was losing subscribers; it had alienated some of its most generous supporters; and governments at all levels were getting stingy.

Bradshaw's early years as general director involved a lot of bailing on the financial side as the company patched its balance sheet with millions drawn down from its endowment fund. But he gradually righted the ship, and continued Dickie's attempts to revitalize the company by improving performance standards and hiring high-profile directors from film and theatre, including Robert Lepage and Atom Egoyan. He made the COC seem more adventurous, even while doing bulletproof fare such as La Traviata.

"I happen to believe that the only thing you can do in the arts that is irresponsible is not to take risks," the 61-year-old Bradshaw says. He means well-calculated risks, put into play with his trademark focus, energy and charm. Whatever hazard there was in aiming for a purpose-built hall has already been rewarded, he said, by the company's increased visibility and expanded donor base. The house has become the symbol of the COC's rising fortunes, and a lot of people want to associate themselves -- and their money -- with that success.

"You've got to say that this will work and we can raise more money because of it," he said. "That's what I've been saying, and thank God I've been proven right."

His vision for an opera house has remained largely unaltered, he said, since discussions began in the late nineties. The COC wanted a place where it could present itself in the best possible light and expand to an eight-opera season. "There has to be room for us to grow," he said. "That's why we built the house."

He admits that those words could sound a little alarming to the National Ballet, which will enter the hall as a tenant whose hold on performance dates may, in future, depend on the speed with which the COC grows. "I think it has been hard for the ballet to realize that they're a tenant," said Bradshaw. "I wish they had come in with us."

With the equivalent of $66-million in public money and a possible $10-million more in matching grants from the federal government (assuming the Harper cabinet honours a Liberal commitment), the COC has been careful to avoid the appearance of building a pleasure house for the rich. During a hard-hat tour recently, my guide stressed architect Jack Diamond's "democratic" front entrance: a sheet of curtain-wall glass that makes the building feel open to the street.

"A lot of people who were giving us money wanted deep red plush, and gilt," Bradshaw said. "That's not the opera house we're building."

He's pleased that the COC recently sold 27,500 tickets for Carmen (a nice reversal of fortune from the disastrous run of 1993), but would also like to be able to think small and take more risks. For that, he says, he'll need to see the new money promised to the Canada Council during the last Parliament, which would likely put $5-million more into the COC's hands each year.

"I want more people to come, and to expand our audience," he says, "but wouldn't it be wonderful to do more things that are very adventurous? Wouldn't it be wonderful not always to be thinking like a blockbuster organization?"