Although Toronto has a reputation as a place of business, it has much to offer the visitor interested in soaking up some local culture - notably its vibrant theater scene. Toronto has the third most theaters of any city in the world, after London and New York, showing everything from high-budget musicals to experimental fringe theater.
Toronto’s role as the cultural capital of English-speaking Canada is also evident in its major performing arts companies, with ballet, opera and the symphony all well represented during a season that generally runs from September to April.
Evidence of how
seriously the city takes its role as a cultural capital is the C$181m
Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts (tel: (416) 363 6671; website:
www.fourseasonscenter.ca), the magnificent new home of the
Canadian Opera Company inaugurated in June 2006. Designed by Toronto architect Jack Diamond and located at 145 Queen Street West, the center integrates the best features of the grand European opera houses with innovative technology in acoustics and sightlines. The center is also the performance venue for
The National Ballet of Canada.
Foremost among the many classical music companies who play at
Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe Street (tel: (416) 872 4255; website:
www.roythomsonhall.com), is the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Further east, the
Hummingbird Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Front Street East (tel: (416) 393 7469; website:
www.hummingbirdcenter.com), stages big dance, music and performance productions. It was here that during a 1974 Bolshoi ballet visit a young Mikhail Baryshnikov, on loan from the Kirov, bolted from the center’s stage door, down The Esplanade and into a waiting getaway car and a new life in the West.
In addition to the daily newspapers, the free weeklies
NOW (website:
www.nowtoronto.com) and
eye (website:
www.eye.net), have listings for major events and obscure fringe offerings. Tickets for most cultural attractions can usually be bought through
Ticketmaster Canada (tel: (416) 870 8000; website:
www.ticketmaster.ca). Tickets for many of the big musicals are available from
TicketKing (tel: (416) 872 1212
or 1 800 461 3333; website:
www.ticketking.com) or in person (Tuesday-Saturday 1200-1930) from the
TOTix half-price ticket booth, at the southeast corner of Yonge Street and Dundas Street (tel: (416) 536 6468; website:
www.totix.ca).
Music: The
Toronto Symphony Orchestra (tel: (416) 598 3375
or 593 7769; website:
www.tso.on.ca) performs over 125 concerts every year at
Roy Thomson Hall (see above), attracting guest performers of international acclaim. The
Canadian Opera Company (tel: (416) 363 6671; website:
www.coc.ca) has received growing audiences in recent seasons and will no doubt have continued success in its impressive new home, the
Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts.
Theater: The city’s Theater District is focused on King Street West, slightly north of the CN Tower. Built in 1907, the
Royal Alexandra Theater, 260 King Street West, is an old, spacious Victorian theater that shows musicals along with the occasional piece of serious theater. The nearby
Princess of Wales Theater, 300 King Street West, shows similarly popular fare, generally bringing touring versions of major West End and Broadway shows. Both venues are run by
Mirvish Productions (tel: (416) 593 0351; website:
www.mirvish.com) and should be booked through
TicketKing (see above). The
Canon Theater, 263 Yonge Street, restored to its exquisite 1920s design and for many years the Toronto home of
Phantom of the Opera, is now also a part of the Mirvish stable.
For a more local flavor, the
Poor Alex Theater, 296 Brunswick Avenue (tel: (416) 923 1644; website:
www.pooralextheater.com), is one of the best venues offering innovative new theater. The
Tarragon Theater, 30 Bridgman Avenue (tel: (416) 531 1827; website:
www.tarragontheater.com), specializes in new Canadian writing. The
St Lawrence Center for the Performing Arts, 27 Front Street East (tel: (416) 366 7723; website:
www.stlc.com), is home to the
Canadian Stage Company (tel: (416) 368 3110; website:
www.canstage.com), producers of modern Canadian plays and productions. Near the waterfront, the
Harbourfront Center Theater, at the Harbourfront Center, 231 Queen’s Quay West (tel: (416) 973 4000; website:
www.harborfront.on.ca), was built as an ice house in the 1920s but was renovated into a modern theater, showing musicals alongside more serious pieces, in the 1990s.
Further information on drama in the city is available from the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts
(tel: (416) 536 6468; website:
www.tapa.ca), which represents over a hundred local companies.
It is worth getting out of the city for two of the country’s most important theater festivals - the
Shaw Festival (website:
www.shawfest.com), held in Niagara-on-the-Lake (see
Excursions), and the
Stratford Festival (tel: 1 800 567 1600; website:
www.stratfordfestival.ca), in Stratford, two hours’ drive southwest of Toronto. As the name suggests, the focus at the Stratford Festival is on the works of Shakespeare, although the repertoire also includes more recent works by Canadian and international playwrights like Albee and Chekhov.
Dance: The National Ballet of Canada (tel: (416) 345 9686; website:
www.national.ballet.ca), the country’s best known dance company, uses the new
Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts as its performance venue. The company’s most popular show is the annual Christmas production of
The Nutcracker. One of the best spots for Canadian and international contemporary dance is at the
Harbourfront Center, 231 Queen’s Quay West (tel: (416) 973 4000; website:
www.harborfront.on.ca).
Film: In recent years, Toronto has gained the nickname ‘Hollywood North’, due to the large number of American films that are shot on its streets and in its buildings. Around 40 American feature films are shot in Toronto every year. Recent successes include
16 Blocks (2005),
Assault on Precinct 13 (2004), the film musical
Chicago (2002),
Angel Eyes (2001),
American Psycho (2000)
and
X-Men (2000). A number of television series, including the US version of
Queer as Folk, have also been filmed in the city. Among the films where Toronto actually plays itself are
The City (1999),
Forever Knight (1992) and
Exotica (1994), directed by University of Toronto alumnus Atom Egoyan. Honeymooning couples might want to avoid the noir-ish Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotton thriller,
Niagara (1953), although the spectacular falls do compensate for the acrimony between the newlyweds.
Every September, Toronto is flooded with celebrities and film types; patios are overrun with bruschetta and canapés, as film buffs line up to see major releases and arthouse works from around the world during the
Toronto International Film Festival (tel: (416) 968 3456; website:
www.e.bell.ca/filmfest), the second largest festival in the world, after Cannes. The construction of a new
Festival Center (website:
www.festivalcenter.ca) will start in 2007. A C$196m project, a five-story podium building of 13,935 sq m (150,000sq ft), with five cinemas, over 1,300 seats, a gallery, multiple learning studios, reference library and archive, retail store and year-round ticket center, is scheduled to be completed in 2009.
As far as seeing a film in Toronto goes, it is customary for one to purchase tickets at the cinema, which means arriving early if the film is likely to sell out. Seating is always acquired on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Cineplex (website:
www.cineplex.com) operates the majority of Toronto’s mainstream cinemas, with locations throughout the city. The
Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West (tel: (416) 516 2331; website:
www.bloorcinema.com), is popular for arthouse and more obscure international films.
Cinémathèque Ontario, at the
Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas Street West (tel: (416) 968 3456; website:
www.bell.ca/cinematheque), shows a mixture of English-language and subtitled films.
Literary Notes: Toronto is home to two of the English-speaking world’s most talented and well known writers, Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood. Not surprisingly, their home city features directly in much of their literature. Ondaatje’s
In the Skin of a Lion (1987) follows the early history of Toronto, including the building of the Bloor Street Viaduct and the R C Harris Waterworks. Atwood’s
Cat’s Eye (1988) also finds the city as its setting, telling the story of a woman painter returning to Toronto for a retrospective of her work, which brings on a re-examination of her own and her city’s past. Other famous Torontonian writers include Anne-Marie MacDonald, whose
Fall on Your Knees (1996), a story of love, abuse and incest on Canada’s east coast, won the Commonwealth Prize, and Anne Michaels, whose
Fugitive Pieces (1997) tells the story of an aging Holocaust survivor’s life and friendships in Toronto.
The famous American author John Irving has a particular fondness for Toronto, spending much of his time in the city. His novel,
A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), features a private school for girls in Toronto, where the book’s narrator is a teacher. And it was also in Toronto that a young American writer, Ernest Hemingway, got his big break - as a journalist on the
Toronto Star. Toronto journalist and novelist David Gilmour won Canada’s top literary prize, the Governor General’s (GG) fiction award, for 2005 with his
A Perfect Night to go to China. One of Canada’s foremost poets, Dionne Brand, also lives in Toronto. She won the GG award for poetry in 1997 for
Land to Light On.
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