Alaina Viau
Alaina is a daring director, creator and producer based in Toronto. She is the Founder and Executive Artistic Director of award nominated indie opera company Loose Tea Music Theatre where she creates genre defying productions that center on critical social issues, raising under represented voices and cross-cultural relationships. She is defined by creating her own rules in opera creation, seeking to push and challenge the opera experience: “The stunning originality of Viau’s vision…grip the imagination.” – Opera Going Toronto. Alaina is a queer disabled artist seeking a new framework for safe and compassionate creation processes that decolonize and dismantle hierarchical practices. She was a finalist in Crow’s Theatre national RBC Rising Star Emerging Directors Prize who “will make a strong impact on the performing arts in Canada”. The 19-20 season saw Alaina DORA nominated for Outstanding New Opera for Singing Only Softly, a new opera based on the redacted and missing pages of Anne Frank’s Diary. This season Alaina launched the BIPOC Composer Librettist Development Program through Loose Tea to support new emerging opera creators and leads the production of new works by diverse creators. Currently Alaina is working on a new transgendered opera based on a true contemporary Canadian story and, a non-binary opera based on the story of genderfluid and trailblazing pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Her first film short was an official selection at the USA Film Festival Dallas.
Alaina was Resident Director at Toronto City Opera for the 18-19 season directing Le nozze di figaro and La traviata, and Artistic Director of Ottawa indie company SOPAC for two seasons having directed Suor Angelica, Il Pagliacci and Cendrillon. She directed L’Histoire du Soldat for the Toronto Summer Music Festival, presented a sold out original work Whose Opera is it Anyway? at Music and Beyond Festival and directed Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra’s 40th Anniversary show with L’isola disabitata. She has a background in arts admin, producing and production having previously been the Assistant Production Manager at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Opera and Orchestra Manager at the Royal Conservatory of Music.
“Always searching and provocative direction of Alaina Viau” – WholeNote Magazine