Giuseppe Macina

Macina, Giuseppe

Giuseppe (Francesco) Macina. Tenor, opera director, teacher, conductor, b Modugno, Italy, 20 Jun 1938; Artist Diploma voice (Toronto) 1967. He came to Canada in 1954 and settled in Toronto, where his teachers included Gina Cigna and Ernesto Vinci at the RCMT and Irene Jessner at the University of Toronto. He made his operatic debut as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni in a 1962 Royal Cons Opera School (University of Toronto Opera Division) production and sang supporting roles 1963-9 with the COC and 1967-8 with the Vancouver Opera. He has performed in oratorio and concert with the Orpheus Choir of Toronto and the Brantford and McMaster SOs. A stage director 1969-74 at the University of Toronto's opera department, he also directed 1971-81 Mohawk College (Hamilton) Opera Theatre productions. He served 1973-9 as conductor of the Santa Cecilia Chorus of Toronto, with whom he recorded the album Canadian Heritage (1973, RCA ST-57343), and became conductor of the Coro Giuseppe Verdi at Toronto's Columbus Centre in 1990. His pupils, in voice or operatic stagecraft, have included Barbara Carter, Deborah Jeans, and Marilyn Lightstone. In 1967 Macina became the first artistic director of the newly formed Toronto Opera Repertoire, organized to provide performance opportunities for young singers. He has continued to direct this company, which operates under the auspices of the Toronto Board of Education. It has presented an annual series of three productions of such operas as La Bohème, Cavalleria Rusticana, Carmen, Don Pasquale, The Impresario, Lucia di Lammermoor, Macbeth, Madama Butterfly, A Masked Ball, Norma, Pagliacci, Rigoletto, Suor Angelica, Tosca, and La Traviata, as well as two programs of staged opera excerpts at Toronto's Central Technical High School. Among former members of the company are Paul Frey, Susan Gudgeon, Sister Barbara Ianni, Deborah Jeans, Diane Loeb, Louise Roy, Guillermo Silva-Marin, and Belva Spiel.