Rebecca Hass, Mezzo Soprano
Pacific Opera Victoria
Mary inThe Flying Dutchman
October, 2011
Rebecca Hass performs the role of Mary in Pacific Opera Victoria's October 2011 production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. Rebecca made her Pacific Opera Victoria debut as Marcellina in 2003's The Marriage of Figaro. She returned in 2005 for performances as the Gamekeeper's Wife / Owl in The Cunning Little Vixen and as Larina in Eugene Onegin. In 2007 she appeared as Gaea in POV's Canadian premiere of Richard Strauss' Daphne and in 2008 as Albine in Massenet's Thaïs. She returned in 2009 as Mother Goose in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, followed in April 2011 by the role of the Baroness in Samuel Barber's Vanessa
Rebecca enjoys a rich and varied musical career that has embraced opera, concert work, and musicals with companies across Canada.
Recent roles include Little Buttercup (HMS Pinafore) and Katisha (The Mikado) with Edmonton Opera; Dryade (Ariadne auf Naxos), Mary (Der Fliegende Holländer), and Gertrude (Romeo et Juliette) with Calgary Opera; Third Secretary in the Canadian premiere of iwith Vancouver Opera; and Berta (Il barbiere di Siviglia) with Opera Lyra Ottawa
Her diverse career has also included Der Gymnasiast in Lulu for the Canadian Opera Company as directed by Nicholas Muni, Bloody Mary in South Pacific with Edmonton Opera, directed by Brian Deedrick, Nero for The Canadian Opera Company Ensemble, directed by Stephen Wadsworth and Mrs. Grose in The Turn of the Screw with Manitoba Opera, conducted by Bramwell Tovey and directed by Kelly Robinson, as well as Mrs. Mclean from Susannah as directed by Morris Panych for Vancouver Opera.
She has also been a soloist with many choral groups and orchestras including Boris Brotts' Summer Festival and the Victoria, Hamilton and Newfoundland Symphonies.
In the Phantom of the Opera in Toronto, Rebecca performed as a swing for two years as well.
She has created several shows that mix monologue and songs from the great American song book. She wrote, produced and directed Wanna Sing a Show Tune, a humorous journey where she played a dishy diva that brings the offstage shenanigans onstage. She also created an emotional journey in Impressions of Emily Carr, using the writings of this great painter to illuminate the final years of her life using her own texts interspersed with songs.
Along with her performance career she adjudicates at music festivals across Canada, mentors vocally up and coming musical theatre talent at the Canadian College of Performing Arts and is a Life Coach. She has guest hosted CBC Radio 2's Saturday afternoon at the Opera and does freelance work for CBC. She has performed with the Victoria Fringe Festival and the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, where she now makes her home.
Rebecca Hass made of the obstinately uncommunicative Old Baroness a fearsome figure of oppressively introverted passion.
Bernard Jacobson, Seen and Heard International, review of Vanessa, May 2011
Dedicated to being the last mezzo standing, my professional career already spans over twenty years of performing. Variety is the spice in my life as I continually reinvent myself as a singer of opera, concert, Broadway and as a writer (Humber College Sketch Writing Intensive), producer, and director and as a performance coach. I've left the coloratura lyric mezzo land of Rosina behind, from whence I started, and I look forward to the witches, moms, best friends and mystical creatures yet to come my way onstage and off.
Rebecca Hass
May, 2011