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| Shannon Mercer, above, performing last fall in the Barber of Seville for Opera Ontario. She performs Tuesday at the NAC. |
She is only 26, which in the world of opera is practically toddlerhood, but Ottawa native Shannon Mercer is already making a big noise, and she's attracting admirers in high places.
Toronto Star critic William Littler ahs called her "one of Canada's most promising young sopranos."
Richard Bradshaw, artistic director of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, says she's "one of the most intelligent and musical artists I've seen anywhere ... someone who could really have a world-class career and be a household name."
And veteran Montreal Gazette reviewer Arthur Kaptainis praised Mercer's "full, radiant voice and natural way of using it," after she sang in a concert performance of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.
But Ottawa audiences haven't had many opportunities lately to hear Mercer in her hometown. She sang a recital in the 300-seat NAC Studio last season as part of a series showcasing young artists, and the Ottawa Chamber Music Society presented her earlier this season as part of a festival of Canadian music, but she has yet to appear with Opera Lyra Ottawa or the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
So, the Canterbury High School grad says she's been eagerly looking forward to her first performance at the NAC's big room on Tuesday, when she is a soloist in the Ottawa Choral Society's performance of Handel's oratorio Saul in the 2,000-seat Southam Hall.
Mercer has been particularly praised for her performances of baroque music, and the concert will mark her first performance of the vividly dramatic oratorio, which tells the biblical sotry of Saul, the first Hebrew king, and the tragic consequences of his jealousy toward the young hero David. Mercer sings the role of Saul's daughter Michal.
"I always love singing Handel and this is really beautiful music," said Mercer last week in Winnipeg, where she was finishing a two-week tour of the prairies with Montreal's Les Voix Baroques before returning to her Toronto home.
To be conducted by Choral Society director Iwan Edwards, Saul will feature a much-expanded Thirteen Strings orchestra, with Quebec bass-baritone Olivier Laquerre in the role of Saul and Korean-born countertenor David Dong Qyu Lee, a finalist in the 1999 Metropolitan Opera Competition, as David. Other soloists include tenors Nils Brown and Michiel Schrey and soprano Charlene Pauls.
But Mercer will have an especially active cheering section. She's the youngest of five children (all her siblings still live in the Ottawa area), and she has a lot of friends and mentors in the city who have followed her progress from the time she started singing in church choirs and performing in family talent nights organized by the Ottawa Welsh Society. Her father Kenneth died in 1995, but her mother Muriel will also be at the NAC to hear her daughter sing.
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| Shannon Mercer got her big break at 15 when she won top prize at a prestigious music festival in Wales. |
In January, Mercer's friends and relatives travelled to Kingston to hear her sing a concert performance of Carmen with the Kingston Symphony that had Ottawa mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah in the title role. Singing the role of goody-goody Micaela, Mercer displayed a pure, focuses soprano and a warm, round sound throughout her register. She also showed a real feeling for the emotion of the music.
Mercer and Nesrallah did Ottawa proud, receiving the biggest cheers of the evening.
Mercer started singing while she was in elementary school.
She won prizes at msuic festivals, and at 15 she won top prize over 32 contestants in the under-16 category at the prestigious Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod in Wales. Her performance was broadcast on BBC Television. As a teenager, she sange in amateur musicals with Orpheus and the Company of Musical Theatre.
'To me singing always just came naturally and it never felt like work. It was something that was always joyous and fun.' - SHANNON MERCER
Her father was part Welsh and sang in a Welsh choir, and Shannon started winging early at the Ottawa Welsh Society's talent evenings.
"People would get up and play instruments or sing, and that helped me to get over stage fright. I got used to being up there and enjyoing being on stage," she says. "To me singing always just came naturally and it never felt like work. It was something that was always joyous and fun."
She earned an undergraduate degree at McGill University, where she won particular praise in early music but sang a wide range of pieces that included Stravinsky and a performance of Mahler's Fourth Symphony.
From there, she went to Toronto to study at the University of Toronto's Opera School, but left there after a year when she was accepted into the Canadian Opera Company's Studio Ensemble, a prestigious paid training program for young singers. Every year, about 150 audition, and only six to eight are accepted.
Mercer was there for two years, and she says she learned a great deal. While there, she sang in productions that included Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and contemporary German composer Hans Werner Henze's challenging Venus and Adonis. Mercer later sang the Henze piece at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, when the producers there brought the Canadian cast to Amsterdam.
She completed the Toronto training program in 2002, but she has already been invited back and has sung the roles of Oscar in Un Ballo in Maschera and Elvira in L'Italiana in Algeri for the company.
Coming highlights include a performance in Handel's Alcina with Les Violons du Roy and her first performance as a soloist in Messiah, with conductor Bernard Labadie. She will also sing at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival this summer. Next season, she will back to share a stage with Nesrallah, when Opera Lyra Ottawa presents a double bill of comic operas by Gian Carlo Menotti at Centrepointe Theatre: The Telephone and The Old Maid and the Thief.
"That's going to be a lot of fun. I'll get to work with Julie again and I love Menotti's music."
In a competitive field, Mercer says she feels fortunate to be getting regular engagements and to be doing what she loves to do.
"It's a great feeling when you're able to touch people and see that they have been moved by the music," she says. "If you've been able to sing beautiful music and to feel that you've been at your best, and that listeners have felt something, that's a natural high."