Crew Mantle at Command Opera has made my face go all shades of rosé again. Crew blogged very positively about his experience at our Norma opera last fall. And has since become a good friend of VO.

When I got my promotion, he took to his blog again to give me some shout-outs.

Theatres from the very top tier to the more provincial houses simply refuse to understand the power of the new media and therefore would not begin to know how to harness it properly. In some cases, the refusal to merely acknowledge its very existence has become so ludicrously ingrained, it can only be adequately compared to an ostrich with its head in the sand. COMMANDOpera who has direct contact with many opera houses globally, certainly can attest to the legitimacy of this. Not the case with the way edgy Vancouver Opera. Do you ever wonder why ALL top tier artists make a point of appearing with this company at some point in their career? COMMANDOpera would suggest it is the easygoing laid back atmosphere within the inner org., and the fact it remains eternally young in spirit of devotion to doing the art form justice. This level of ultra cool velvet glove thinking, is pervasive in every aspect of the company.

When COMMANDOpera was invited (with a certain amount of arm twisting) to attend the season opening prima of Norma, even I was taken aback by how well thought out, and forward thrusted the marketing was. Heading this entire movement at the time was the executive assistant to the Director General, Miss Ling Chan. I was so impressed with my initial understandings of how deep the company was utilising bloggers, COMMANDOpera devoted a post to it found here. The Vancouver Opera, thanks to Miss Chan has its own blog which details events on just about everything found here. Ahhh, but did you think this was the end of it? Indeed not. They have a devoted blog for the upcoming Nixon in China found here , a Facebook page found here, a location on Flicker where they post all kinds of photographs found here, a Twitter account to tweet all things Vancouver Opera found here, and a YouTube page found here (I HIGHLY advise all opera company personnel who are reading this to watch the Norma opening night video to fully grasp how successful this multi faceted effort is reeling in a new audience). If this were not enough go here, read and voila! Manga on the operas which are being mounted! I kid you not… indoctrinate the young now. This is a hardcore attack on all centers involved within the realm of the new media, and have not missed. And it is brilliantly magnificent in our eyes.

Naturally while in Vancouver I had the opportunity to meet the extraordinary Miss Chan. All you will get to see of her is the photograph above. Figure this must be a full time job? The Vancouver Opera has more than a few people on it. Oh and Miss Chan? She now holds the title Social Media Manager. Congratulations Milady! Brava! – Commandopera

Looks like VO made a new friend! And we LOVE making new friends.

Opera and music blogger Purity McCall of se vuoi pace gave us a shout out and some really fantastic kudos on her blog.

“…The new media age is one of great challenges for traditional live entertainment. The challenges are likely to be even greater for a part of that entertainment world that has in many cases forgotten that it is entertainment and imagined itself something akin to medicine – ‘it might not taste or feel good but it will do you good so bend over and be an obedient patient there’s a dear!’. Consequently, I love it when an opera singer has gone that extra mile with their website, or hear of folks in the business working really hard to figure out how to make opera more accessible to people like me, or (most especially) opera companies that are really pushing the boundaries.

Given how often I end up in Seattle or San Francisco it’s irritating that I never seem to have time to get to Vancouver, as the opera company there has been on my radar for a while. I love what they have been doing to ease the stick out of the opera arse (to get Euro-trashy for a minute). And they seem to be really rising to the challenge of the new media/post-crunch era, speculating to accumulate recently with the appointment of a social media manager. I’ve seen too many companies who play around amateurishly with social media and then announce that it’s all a con and won’t work. Vancouver are bucking the trend and taking this seriously, creating posts to tackle the area professionally. And they’ve been consistently working at this for a couple of years now. They have blogs coming out of their ears, a fun and frequently updated Facebook page, and innovative ideas erupting faster than latex clad super-numeries in a Calixto Bieito production (speaking of people trying to shift that stick!). So PAMs (potential audience members) can stumble into their ambit from lots of different parts of cyberspace, and once there the impression is of a decidedly fun, newbie-friendly gang who love opera and want you to love it too. So congratulations Vancouver Opera for striding out on to the cutting edge – and reminding me that I really need to engineer a work trip to Vancouver one of the these days! And good luck VO social media manager Ling Chan – not that I think you need it judging by things so far.”

Aw. Shucks.