Pavlo Hunka Nominated for Dora Award

TORONTO­–Bass-Baritone Pavlo Hunka has been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for his title-role performance in the Canadian Opera Company’s 2005/2006 production of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck.

In his role as Wozzeck, a soldier haunted by his experiences on the battlefield and unable to face the harsh realities of life, Hunka received great critical acclaim–despite suffering from laryngitis.

The Dora awards celebrate excellence in Toronto theatre, dance, and opera, with 33 awards presented to the outstanding works from the previous season. Hunka has been nominated for Outstanding Performance in the Opera Division.

Born in England to a Ukrainian father and an English mother, Hunka qualified as a linguist and practised as a lawyer in the United Kingdom before embarking on an operatic career. He has sung in the leading opera houses around the world, including Paris, Vienna, Munich, Florence, Amsterdam, London and Salzburg, and has performed under the batons of numerous renowned conductors including Claudio Abbado, Jeffrey Tate and Zubin Mehta.

In 2004, Hunka sung the role of Hunding in the COC’s production Die Walkre after his much-acclaimed debut earlier that season in the title role in Falstaff. He also later also appeared in the title role in the COC’s production of Macbeth in the fall of 2005.

Hunka returns to Toronto this fall to sing the role of Wotan in the COC’s company’s presentation of Wagner’s mammoth four-opera series, the Ring Cycle.  It will be the company’s inaugural production in the newly built Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Canada’s first purpose-built opera house.

He will also appear in the COC’s 2006/2007 season opener, Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, in the role of Don Alfonso, which runs from mid-October to the beginning of November, also at the new opera house.

In addition, Hunka has just finished a recording of Kyrylo Stetsenko’s art songs, to be launched in September. 

The winners of the award for which Hunka has been nominated, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, will be announced on June 26.

The awards are named after Dora Mavor Moore, a director who helped establish Canadian professional theatre in the 1930s and 1940s.