COC's ambitious season garners $18M box office

The Canadian Opera Company is ending its inaugural year in its new home on a high note, with attendance for the 2006-07 season averaging 99 per cent.

The Toronto-based COC has just completed a landmark year, featuring 67 performances in the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, including its successful production of the full Ring Cycle last fall.

"This has been an extraordinary year for the Canadian Opera Company with the opening of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, a remarkable Ring Cycle and successful season, as well as witnessing the excitement of our patrons as they look forward to next season," general director Richard Bradshaw said in a statement.

A record 137,000 patrons attended COC performances, bringing in ticket-related revenues of close to $18 million.

That is doublethe 2005-06 season ticket sales of $8.9 million. Included in this season'stotal are 8,000 $20 tickets, a special ticket price offered to young patrons.

The record box office is not surprising given the ambition of the first season in its new home, which featured Wagner's four operas and six mainstage productions.

The 2005-06 season included six productions, but for 2007-08, the company is planning eight operas.

This year's three spring productions — Luisa Miller, Elektra and La Traviata — drew 59,000 patrons and $5.6 million in box office revenue.

The year brought critical success, both to the Jack Diamond-designed Four Seasons Centre in downtown Toronto and to COC productions, such as Mozart's Così fan tutte and Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.