Fodor's Toronto: with Niagara Falls & the Niagara Wine Region (Full-color Travel Guide) by Fodor's Travel Guides

Author:Fodor's Travel Guides [Fodor's Travel Guides]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Travel Distribution
Published: 2017-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

Updated by Rosemary Counter

In terms of culture, Toronto truly is Canada’s New York—the city to which artists flock to make a name for themselves. And the rest of us reap the rewards. With all the options available, these days the biggest obstacle to arts and culture in Toronto is deciding what to experience while you’re here. The capital of the performing arts in English-speaking Canada, Toronto has world-class resident symphony, opera, and ballet companies.

But the arts scene wasn’t always this lively. Before 1950, Toronto had no opera company, no ballet, and very little theater worthy of the title “professional.” Then came the Massey Report on the Arts, and money began to pour in from government grants. The Canada Council, the Canadian Opera Company, CBC television, and the National Ballet of Canada were born. A number of small theaters began to pop up as well, culminating in an artistic explosion throughout the 1970s in every aspect of the arts. (This was also when the Toronto International Film Festival was born.) Adding fuel to the fire was a massive spike in immigration, a recognition that if Canadians did not develop their own arts the Americans would do it for them, and a severing of the political apron strings tying Canada to England, resulting in a desire to cement Canada’s independence and to encourage homegrown talent.

Now Toronto is growing, with new performance venues opening and old ones being refurbished. The current flurry of artistic activity shows no signs of abating. The city has more than 50 dance companies; film festivals and retrospectives overtake screens year-round; and the numerous theatrical troupes and big-budget musicals staged here have earned it the nickname “Broadway North.” Theater is where it really shines, from spit-and-chewing-gum new works to Broadway-style, no-expenses-spared extravaganzas. In fact, Toronto is the largest center for English-speaking theater in the world after New York and London—not bad for a city that’s only the fourth largest in North America by population.

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