Volume 24 Issue 5 - February 2019

It remains the single best compliment I’ve ever received in 40 years in
the business.
But the true worth of Neil Crory’s talent, and genius, and the love
and respect he inspired was in evidence when Sunday Afternoon
in Concert decided to present a live Christmas concert in the Glenn
Gould studio in mid-December 2007. It was one of the first things we
talked about at our first story meeting in September. Neil said he’d
produce it, and rolled off a roster of A-list Canadian opera stars that
he’d try to convince to come perform. All the greats Neil had discovered
and mentored and encouraged and inspired when they were just
starting out, now regularly appearing in the greatest opera houses in
the world. We all looked at each other in disbelief. A concert like that
would take a normal person six to eight months to pull off, if they
could pull it off at all. Neil assured us it would work. We believed him.
And then, because these things happen, we got busy and Neil got
busy, and it was now the first week in November and we really hadn’t
done anything at all to plan the Christmas show. I convened a special
meeting where we all reluctantly agreed that we’d have to shelve the
live concert idea until next year. All, that is, except Neil. No, he said, I
think we can make this happen. In five weeks? Yep. Five weeks? Let
me see what I can do.
And, of course, he pulled it off.
It wasn’t quite Michael Schade saying to the Vienna State Opera
– sorry, you’re going to have get someone else to perform Tamino
next Tuesday – I have to go back to Canada to sing Christmas carols
in front of 250 people in the Glenn Gould Studio because Neil Crory
asked me to, but it was damn close. Performers who are routinely
booked five years in advance all showed up within a month’s notice
because Neil asked them to – Schade, Russell Braun, I don’t think
Isabel Bayrakdarian could make it, but many other stars were there.
The green room was such a Who’s Who of Canadian vocal talent you
couldn’t help but laugh in astonishment at the treasures all assembled
in one place. I on the other hand, wasn’t laughing. As the executive
producer of a show that came together so quickly -- was there even
a dress rehearsal, don’t think so – I sat in the audience in anxious
anticipation, until the first act strode on stage – I think it was two
brothers from Newfoundland – and thereafter spent the entire afternoon
in blissful tears. It was one of the greatest things I ever witnessed
– and it was all Neil – the love in the room, the excellence on stage,
the commitment of the performers , the passion behind it all – it was
everything that Neil Crory represented coming to life and exploding
in beauty in one tiny concert hall one December afternoon. It was
special, to say the least. It was Neil.
Of course, sadly, Neil was predeceased by about a decade by the
CBC Radio Music department he loved and had helped shape. It’s a
tale for another day, but the destruction of CBC Radio Music remains,
whether noticed or not, acknowledged or not, one of the great moral
and artistic tragedies of Canadian cultural life. The organization that
helped create everyone from Glenn Gould to… well, to Neil Crory, was
a beacon for creativity and originality in this country, and the world
beyond, and it was snuffed out in a blizzard of bad ideas, creative
amnesia and Lilliputian thinking in a matter of a few months. The end
of Radio Music didn’t kill Neil Crory, but it didn’t inspire him in his
later years, either.
I’m told that Neil died listening to Schwarzkopf singing Strauss, a
fresh yellow rose in his lapel, surrounded by friends, a true producer
to the end. Those of us who were touched by him, who felt the breeze
of his unique presence pass by us and change the atmosphere around
us, won’t forget him, ever. A country produces few individuals with
his depth of humanity, caring, intelligence and wit. Another like him
won’t be coming along any time soon.
Robert Harris is a writer and broadcaster on music in all its
forms. He is the former classical music critic of the Globe and
Mail and the author of the Stratford Lectures and Song of a Nation:
The Untold Story of O Canada.
A SEASON
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Oct 31—Nov 9, 2019 | Ed Mirvish Theatre
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thewholenote.com February 2019 | 87