About 2,000 friends, family, former colleagues and admirers gathered in Toronto on Tuesday to pay their final respects to Richard Bradshaw, who many say put Canadian opera on the world map.
The conductor and general director of the Canadian Opera Company died last Wednesday at the age of 63 from a heart attack.
About 1,300 mourners packed St. James Cathedral downtown for the funeral service, while hundreds sat outside on chairs in the damp cold under grey skies.
Those in attendance included former governor general Adrienne Clarkson, conductor Sir Andrew Davis, composer Derek Holman, Ontario Lt.-Gov. James Bartleman, Toronto arts philanthropist Walter Carson and the Bishop of Toronto, Right Rev. Colin Johnson.
The cathedral choir sang during the mass while the opera company's orchestra members acted as pallbearers.
The service was traditional Anglican, with remembrances and tributes being reserved for a public memorial to be hosted by the Canadian Opera Company.
Bradshaw, an outspoken advocate for culture and the arts, is credited with building Canada's first professional opera house. The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts opened in Toronto last summer after roughly a decade of planning.
"I think he made opera accessible to people from all walks of life," Bartleman said.
"He has done so much for us in his creation of the opera house and his sustainment of the opera company, he's going to be terribly missed," added Clarkson.
Greg Gatenby, the former head of Toronto's International Festival of Authors, said it was a sad day in the arts community.
"In my opinion he was the man who put the 'Canadian' back in the Canadian Opera Company," Gatenby said.
"For that alone he deserves accolades from all of us, but he did so much more."
Even those who didn't know Bradshaw personally came to pay their respects.
"I just thought with someone so dynamic and who has given so much to the city of Toronto ... I just thought it was nice to be here and give back to him and celebrate his life a little bit," said resident Jane Scott.
Those in the music industry described Bradshaw as intelligent, funny and passionate.
Bradshaw attracted talent to the Canadian Opera Company, including Canadian directors from stage and screen such as Robert Lepage, Atom Egoyan and Francois Girard.
The 1993 double bill of Bartok's "Bluebeard's Castle" and Schoenberg's "Erwartung," directed by Lepage, was the first of a series of collaborations that earned the COC international acclaim and the Toronto production travelled to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York and the Edinburgh International Festival.
Bradshaw is survived by his wife Diana, daughter Jenny and son James.
With a report from CTV's Paul Bliss and files from The Canadian Press
