Brian Deedrick hails from a small Central Alberta town, but has achieved an exotic, world-encompassing life as artistic director of the Edmonton Opera.
Deedrick’s career and travel interests have taken him to the stages of Italy, Israel, Germany, the U.S. — and 36 other countries.
But at this time of year, his thoughts wander back to the small, agricultural community where he began.
He grew up as a free-spirited kid from Lacombe, who loved exploring his surroundings on a bike.
In the 1960s and ’70s, he said, “You could get up on a Saturday morning, make your lunch, jump on your bike and be gone for the rest of the day.”
Exploring the town dump was one of the sketchy activities the young Deedrick got up to without his parents’ knowledge.
“But people were never worried about where you were,” he said, “unlike the poor kids of today, who are squired from school to their next music lesson.”
There’s something about this relaxed, rural upbringing that still shows in his friendly, unpretentious manner.
“I had incredible school teachers, and music teachers who instilled tolerance and support for the arts,” said Deedrick. He even dedicated his master’s thesis in directing at the University of Alberta to his junior high drama teacher, Mrs. Thackery — as well as to Richard O’Brien, the former head of the Red Deer College theatre program, where he later studied.
While Lacombe was a great place to spend his boyhood, Deedrick, like many small-town kids, would dream of a more exotic existence. “Being from Paris or Berlin, or being raised in Rome by the wolves.”
Now he realizes that Lacombe provided him with everything he needed for success.
Besides having involved teachers and supportive parents and friends, Deedrick also had beneficial effect from the Lacombe Research Centre, or what he likes to call “the experimental farm.”
The agricultural centre brought highly educated people to the community after the Second World War. And these new residents, used to having cultural experiences in larger centres, went on to create their own flourishing arts scene in Lacombe.
Deedrick noted the town’s Gilbert and Sullivan Society goes back to the 1950s and “Lacombe always had the Lion’s band.”
Among the others who benefitted from Lacombe’s creative cauldron are international opera singer Anna Maria Kaufman and jazz singer/CBC host Tim Tamashiro (both of whom a teenage Deedrick coached in swimming).
Deedrick acted in high school musicals and later performed with Central Alberta Theatre in Red Deer.
He recalled even once treading the boards with his dentist father in My Fair Lady.
Upon graduating from high school at age 16, Deedrick was all set to embark upon a practical teaching career when he was struck down by a drunk driver. He spent nine weeks in hospital, six of them in traction for a broken hip.
The life-altering experience convinced him to throw caution to the wind and pursue a theatre major at the University of Alberta. “Had that accident not happened, I probably would have pursued an education degree, been a school teacher at the age of 19 — probably in some place like Vegreville,” he said with a chuckle.
Instead, Deedrick graduated with a BA in theatre in 1979, and obtained a master’s degree in directing in 1985. He went on to work for the Citadel and Northern Lights Theatres. And after completing an artist-in-residency at the University of Regina, Deedrick moved to Europe. “I studied theatre in Sweden and spent a year in Italy,” becoming fluent in French, German and Swedish.
He later straddled the Atlantic, working between Europe and Canada. “I spent all of the 1990s on the road, breaking into the opera world,” said Deedrick, who taught at the University of Alberta, the Banff Centre, Mount Royal College and Edmonton’s Opera NUOVA.
He found himself increasingly drawn to opera because of its larger-than-life story lines about undying love and passion.
“Opera is life on the big scale. It’s about living your life in bright colours.” said the former theatre director, who was “excited by the potential of this bigger world.”
In 2002, after many years of freelancing as an international opera director, Deedrick was appointed artistic director of the Edmonton Opera — a job he loves and seems perfectly suited for.
Even his travel hobby (Deedrick makes a point of visiting at least one new country each year and is a summer tour guide in Berlin), turns into research for future opera productions.
“You see two people having a conversation in a cafe in Lima (Peru), and when you’re working on La Boheme, you try to recreate that moment,” said Deedrick, who directs one opera for the Edmonton company each season, then guest directs for other companies.
This not only keeps him fresh, but allows him to work with up-and-coming opera singers “on someone else’s dollar.” He can then cast these rising stars in future Edmonton Opera productions.
Living a nomadic life has meant making the choice to remain single, but Deedrick finds his fulfilment in his artistic successes.
Among his projects last fall were directing Aida in Quebec City and Manon in Calgary. He’s looking forward to mounting Otello for the Edmonton Opera in April and also collaborating with the Alberta Ballet on the operatic ballets, Songs of a Wayfarer and Seven Deadly Sins.
“Opera is no longer the cliche of the fat lady singing with horns on her head,” said Deedrick, who believes a whole new generation is discovering the entertaining power of the art — perhaps because opera allows audience members to share a collective emotional experience.
“It’s the spectacle and the passion that interests. Everything is bigger, bolder, brighter. Everything is tragic and beautiful.”
Deedrick has lived in Edmonton, off and on, for over 30 years but “I don’t know that you can ever leave a small town. . . . ”
Not only does he return to Lacombe regularly to visit his parents, Deedrick keeps bumping into childhood acquaintances wherever he goes — like the last time he was a celebrity volunteer with Edmonton’s Meals on Wheels and somebody “poked me in the back and said, ‘I was in Godspell with you in Lacombe!’ ” he recalled, with a laugh.
The week before Christmas, Deedrick couldn’t wait “to get down to the Calgary and Edmonton trail” to see his Lacombe friends and relations — before jetting off on a winter holiday to Ecuador and Peru.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com