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The worlds of comedy and opera are not always the most obviously harmonious pairing. But for Shannon Mercer, the combination of comedy and classical music has been a career-boosting recipe over the past year.
The Ottawa native was widely praised for her vocal talent and her sense of humour in the role of Despina in the Canadian Opera Company's production of Cosi fan tutte in Toronto last fall. She was also recently featured in Burnt Toast, a made-for-TV series of eight sung-through vignettes about modern romance, written by Dan Redican and starring Paul Gross and Colm Feore, whose singing voices are dubbed by opera stars like Benjamin Butterfield and Russell Braun. Coincidentally, Mercer appears in a segment opposite Jean Stilwell, her Not the Messiah co-star -- both ably do their own singing. (Burnt Toast re-airs on Bravo! in July.) Most recently, Mercer worked alongside the (comedically, if not operatically) illustrious Eric Idle, singing in the world premiere of Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy) with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The comic oratorio, written by Idle and John DuPrez and conducted by the TSO's Peter Oundjian (who happens to be Idle's first cousin), is based on the 1979 film Monty Python's Life of Brian, the British comedy troupe's subversive indictment of Christianity (the title is, of course, taken from one of the more beloved quotes from the film, when Brian's mother insists "He's not the Messiah! He's a very naughty boy!"). Mercer was a natural choice. "The casting call was for a classically trained soprano with skills in comedy," she explains. "And that's exactly who I am." Working on Not the Messiah was thrilling for Mercer. "Because it was the world premiere and it was still in progress, things were being added all the time during rehearsal," she says. "And we [the singers] were all made to be really involved in the show's development." Mercer was impressed with how warm and down-to-earth Idle was. "I forgot how famous he was," she says. "Then I was watching TV recently and I saw him on Entertainment Tonight, something about how he's one of the voices in Shrek the Third, and I thought, 'oh yeah.'" One of Mercer's favourite moments to perform in Not the Messiah is a number misleadingly titled A Little Mozart, a duet with tenor Christopher Sieber that is essentially an operatically sung orgasm. It had the audience howling. "It's so hard not to crack up during that part," says Mercer. "You just have to concentrate really hard on your work." Though Mercer has been making her home in Toronto lately, she is delighted to be spending most of the summer in Montreal (aside from a Canada Day jaunt to upstate New York for another performance of Not the Messiah). "I have a bunch of gigs lined up, and I also just love Montreal in the summer," she says. "The city has a vibrancy, a life, during the summer that is just wonderful." She did a bachelor of music at McGill University, and feels quite at home there. "I have all my favourite places." The fall will bring her back to Ontario to perform Pamina in Opera Hamilton's production of The Magic Flute. She'll also make a concert appearance in her hometown Sept. 30 in Opera Lyra Ottawa's concert version of Ambrose Thomas's Mignon. |