Catching a Madama Butterfly at the Opera

As part of this year’s 50th Anniversary for the Vancouver Opera, I attended their last opera of the season – Madama Butterfly by Puccini.

As part of Blogger Night, we were seated at our table in the auditorium of the Queen Elizabeth theatre and encouraged to blog, tweet and take photos of our experience during the production. This time around I thought instead of live blogging I would just sit back and tweet my experience with a follow up later on my blog for a full review. My side kicks this time around were Stacey Robinsmith, Kelsey Dundon, and John Biehler (with iPad in tow).

As per usual our evening begins with a backstage tour of the production. The stage, costumes and video are all designed by Jun Kaneko from Nagoya Japan giving it a fairly psychedelic look with vivid colours and bold patterns. This stage is smaller than their all their previous productions this year and Jun Kaneko uses lights and artistic video to highlight and enhance the mood of the production.

Standing at the top of the stage it’s easy to become dizzy and suffer from vertigo. The stage director let us know that viewing the stage from a balcony you would see a spiraling effect. Though I wasn’t sure how the whole stage would work during the production, I easily saw how it could play.

The opera is divided up into 3 Acts with only one 25 minute intermission shortly after the first Act.

The performers gave it their all for this production. During the first Act I truly believed in James Valenti’s portrayal of Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton as an American navel officer who is stationed in Japan arranges to marry a young geisha – Madama Butterfly. His innocents, yet arrogant attitudes, are believable as he meets his young bride to be for the first time. James’ singing is superb, and his acting skills are amazing. Though not your typical older Tenor, James is young and fits the young naval officer look.

Mihoko Kinoshita’s portrayal of Madama Butterfly was amazing. Singing some of the classics that I’ve heard before were sung with passion and the chemistry between her and James were amazing. You can see the love she has for the naval officer and though the first Act is filled with flirting between the two, you wonder what would happen if their relationship did work out in the end.

The supporting cast also do an amazing job with Joseph Hu’s comical portrayal of Goro the marriage broker and Zheng Cao’s heartwarming portrayal of Suzuki, servant to Madama Butterfly. Also the amazing Jonathan Darlington conducting the amazing music of Puccini and Yoyoi Hirano’s coaching how the actors move on stage make this production a must see.

To round off the evening we were part of the cast after party backstage and were able to mingle with the cast and crew that made this production from the Vancouver Opera truly enjoyable.

What an amazing evening and a great way to round out the wonderful 50th Anniversary of the Vancouver Opera. I’m hoping I’ll be able to participate again next season on Blogger Night as it’s truly a great experience and one that I am grateful to have been apart of! Thanks again to Ling Chan, Social Media Manager of the Vancouver Opera and all the great staff.

Convergence 2010 Vancouver

This past week I attended Convergence 2010 which is a full day conference that bring together savvy marketers into one building sharing thought provoking ideas in the marketing field. This was my third year of attending and each year I gain a greater appreciation of marketers. It’s not just about coming up with new ideas or campaigns, it’s all about how you deliver your message and the mediums you use to achieve this.

Social Media has pushed the boundaries, yet there is always the core value of relationships that will always make a campaign work.

Listening to Marc Gobé of Emotional Branding speak about emotional branding was a great way to kick off the day. He’s ideas on how to make certain generations emotionally connect with your brand were inspiring, and this coming from a sales guy that doesn’t work in a marketing department. He also showed how business in San Paolo, where outdoor billboards are now banned, are using art and architecture to attract customers into their stores. By making their outside store visually appealing they were able to increase their sales.

As most conferences these days there were discussions on how social media is playing a bigger role in marketing and how organizations are incorporating this more and more into their corporate structures.

Mobile marketing also played big this year, with Apple’s introduction of the iPad and smart phones becoming more popular, these are becoming great tools for marketers to use and be apart of. It seems that creating an app for your brand is the way to go as it allows for a greater consumer experience and allows them to be more apart of your brand. Granted the iPad panel with Scott Michaels, Vice President, Atimi Software, Jason Snell, VP & Editorial Director, Macworld and Olivier Vincent, CEO, Canpage didn’t convince me on getting an iPad (at least not just yet).

The day ended off with Dr. Ginger Grant of Creativity in Business Canada Inc. speak about creating a Brand Experience through Storytelling was a great way to end off the conference and wrap things up nicely. Dr. Ginger Grant is one smart cookie!

Thanks to COSSETTE West for inviting me to attend.

You can see more photos of the day on my Flickr Convergence 2010 set.

FIFA World Cup – 2 Weeks Away

With the FIFA World Cup in South Africa only 2 weeks away from today, I’m surprised that I haven’t been that excited about it. I’m not sure if it has to do with my current busy schedule, but I wanted to get excited about it.

Chris MGuire on Twitter suggested I watch the following video to get some inspiration and build my excitement.

Though a great video for Nike, it doesn’t show the true excitement for me, but I found the following video that brings some great moments of past World Cup’s and highlights fans too, which I think truly make the World Cup what it is.

Being from Argentina, I of course will be routing for them, and this commercial below shows how you too can become a fan of Argentina, with a few rules of course! 🙂

What do you guys think? Are you excited about the World Cup?

Happy 30th Birthday Amanda

It’s not everyday you reach a milestone in life, but today is my niece’s Amanda’s 30th birthday (boy they grow up so fast).

It’s hard to believe that 30 years ago, she came into the world and made me an uncle for the very first time. Yes I was teased at school for being an uncle at such a young age, so much so that as Amanda grew up I refused to be called “Uncle Gus”. I made her just call me Gus.

I enjoyed watching her grow up from a baby, to a young toddler, to a per-teen, to successful woman. I know she wouldn’t have been able to have grown up as a wonderful person if it wasn’t for her loving family, mother and father. She truly is a very special person and so what that you are leaving your 20’s behind and entering your 30’s. Let’s face it, it’s just another number. You are still the same person you were the day before as you are today.

So even though I can’t be there for your birthday as you were for mine this year. I’m sending you all the love.

Happy Birthday Amanda! Have an Awesome-sauce day!

Happy Mother’s Day

Mother and Sisters

Another year passes and another year to celebrate mothers.

My mom has been a rock! She’s been there with me through all the crappy stuff, she’s changed my dirty diapers when I was young, feed me, took care of my scraped knees, nursed my cold, dressed me, and showed me that true respect and kindness are what makes you who you are. My mom sacrificed a lot for my sisters and I. She did this so we could have food on the table and have a wonderful home. Though we might not have always agreed, we always loved each other unconditionally.

I’m not 100% sure where my mother is this today. I’m not sure if she is still in Argentina somewhere enjoying the sunshine and family, or back home in Toronto getting ready for the warmer weather to begin. Either way I intend to at least make some contact with her.

Both my sisters are also mothers and this day is also a celebration of all the great work they have done for their kids.

I don’t know what it is, but mothers are always willing to sacrifice for their children to make sure they have a wonderful and successful life.

So on this day (and should be every other day as well), we celebrate that wonderful thing that is motherhood.

I love my mom very much and I love my sisters for doing what they do! You are all inspiring! Happy Mother’s Day!

Northern Voice 2010 – In Photos

I had a great time this past couple of days at Northern Voice. I’m still digesting the content that I attended and hoping to view some of the sessions online of those that I missed. In the interim, here are some of my favourite photos I took from the past 2 days.

More photos can been seen on my Flickr Set or search for “NorthernVoice10“

Sending Multiple Photos on the iPhone

Most days I don’t pay too much attention to TV commercials, but the other night while watching Fringe the iPhone commercial caught my eye. In the commercial they were clicking through multiple photos and sending them via email. That surprised me as I never knew you could send multiple photos through the iPhone.

To share you photos open up your photo album.

At the bottom left you will notice the share button, click this and start selecting your photos by touching the appropriate thumbnail and a check mark appears to let you know it has been selected.

Click on Share and you can send all the photos selected via Email or MMS.

There you have it. A great and simple way to share multiple photos in quickly and with easy instead of sending multiple emails with one photo attachment at a times.

The Wedding Singer – Vancouver Production

I was invited by Fighting Chance Productions to attend their opening night of The Wedding Singer last week, but unfortunately due to some other plans, I had to cancel. Ryan was gracious enough to offer me a chance to see it another day. Last night was that day for me.

For those that do not know, The Wedding Singer is a musical based on the movie by the same name staring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. The musical version, with music by Matthew Sklar and lyrics by Chad Beguelin, had its first performance on Broadway on April 27, 2006 and ran to December 31, 2006 [wikipedia] and makes its Vancouver premiere at the Jericho Arts Centre directed by Ryan Mooney of Fighting Chance Productions.

Since my good friend Theresa loves the movie, I thought it would be great to have her attend the show with me.

The Wedding Singer tells the story of Robbie Hart, played by Andrew Halliwell, a New Jersey wedding singer and Julia Sullivan, played by Lexy Campbell, a banquet hall waitress, who meet at a wedding. Robbie’s fiancee leaves him at the alter and Julia’s fiancee is a douche bag stock broker. Of course the story is your typical boy meets girl story, but it has some cute and charming moments throughout. Andrew puts so much heart in his character of Robbie and really shines in the production. Though Lexy’s Julia is sometimes a little drab, the chemistry more than makes up for it.

The supporting cast does a fantastic job of keeping the play moving along, including Sean Parson’s portrayal of George (a boy George clone) and Alex McMorran as Sammy (including his Flock of Seagulls hairdo) and since the play takes place in the 80’s it’s fun to see 80’s pop culture thrown in for good fun. Yes the 80’s were a strange decade. Though I think the production could have done better with a bigger stage, they did a fantastic job of delivering the story and everyone looked like they were have tons of fun in the process.

photo by Emme Rogers

Emme Rogers was able to get some great shots of the production  and you can view them on her Flickr page.

It was a fun evening with some great laughs by the audience and some fun music along the way. Well done Ryan on a great production. Fighting Chance Productions is doing great things in the Theatre community and you keep bringing some great value and allowing young actors to shine.

The Wedding Singer runs from April 26th to May 22nd with tickets at $25 – $30. Based on an email I received today, tickets are selling out fast so don’t miss your chance to attend. Get  your tickets now.

A Conferencing I Will Go!

What a crazy few days it has been and I have neglected my blog for far too long, so my apologies to all of you.

That said I’m gearing up for a busy couple of months of conferences starting this Friday with Northern Voice. I’m very excited about attending this for the second year, but this time I’m attending the full conference. I’m hoping to get some great new insight into the community as well as be able to connect with some great people all around.

The week after, I’m attending the BCAMA Vision Conference for my first time and I’m looking forward to it. This is a different type of conference that I’m used to as it deals mainly with Marketing and will have a different type of person than I’m usually used to.

The next day I head over to Calgary for some special training. I’ve accepted a board position with IABC-BC and will be involved with their Dare to Lead conference. Saddly Tanya and Barry are on their honeymoon so I won’t be able to visit with them. This will be a quick weekend trip in and out so I’m hoping to get in as much as possible as I’ve never visited Calgary before.

In June I head off to Toronto for the IABC World Conference. As it is in Toronto, I’ll be able to connect with my family for a few short days before and after. I love Toronto (let the hating begin), and it’s always fun to go back home and explore the city further. That city is so big and every time I visit I try to find a new place or area I’ve never been in all my years living in the area.

Right after the IABC Conference, I head to Regina for the CPRS National Conference. Last year I was involved in the great successful run in Vancouver and I’m looking forward to seeing some fellow colleagues as well as PR professionals from across Canada.

So I’m going to be a very busy man in the next couple of months. I’m excited about the new possibilities and the new direction my life is going.