About us

Evil Diva Productions is a small but ambitious opera company.  We are dedicated to opera as a uniquely powerful dramatic form – music, text, and theatre working together to create authentic emotional experiences.   We believe that both modern and classical opera can be made accessible to a more diverse audience than it currently attracts – that opera can be freed from the deadly class baggage that keeps it from speaking to all.  It is our dream is to become the home of like-minded composers, writers, and singers, where they are free to create new forms and tell new stories, as well as to new audiences drawn by the power of our creations.

Kristin Mueller-Heaslip, Artistic Director

Winner of the 2008 Eckhardt-Grammate National Music
Competition, soprano Kristin Mueller-Heaslip is known to Canadian audiences as an intelligent and sensitive performer of new and unusual music. After touring Canada on the Eckhardt-Grammate Winner’s Tour, Kristin turned her attention to more traditional opera and starred as Elvira in Opera in Concert’s production of I Puritani (March 2010). Only a few weeks later she starred as Sophie Scholl
in Udo Zimmerman’s Die Weisse Rose. In September 2010 she produced and starred in Fallen Voices: Three Operas for Two People for Evil Diva Productions.

As a performer, arranger, and performance coordinator, she collaborated with artist Derek Liddington to create Notes on a working-class opera for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Toronto (2010). In August 2011 she will be working with Liddington again on a similar project with the Art Gallery of Missisauga.

As a writer, Kristin’s poetry has been set by composers Chad Martin (“K’s Songs”, 2003) and Benjamin Mueller-Heaslip (“The Hated Toaster”, 2006; material for the album “Truth in the Dark”, 2007), and her
librettos have been set by Michael Hynes, Alex Eddington, and Benjamin Mueller-Heaslip. Her writing is intimate and personal in nature, often asking and attempting to answer the question “What does it mean to be human in a hostile and unpredictable world?” She publishes her poetry, short
fiction, and personal writings at Scintillator.

With her husband, Benjamin Mueller-Heaslip, Kristin has run minimalist chamber punk ensemble The Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra. They have released two recordings: Truth in the Dark (2007) and The Torture Memos (2009).

Jennifer Wardle, Production Designer

Jennifer has created set designs and performance environments for Evil Diva’s fall 2010 production of Fallen Voices: Three Operas for Two people, conTakt ensemble’s performance of ‘Trinity’ at the Budapest Fall Festival and Ettore Mazzolini Concert Hall in Toronto, and Skinny Jo’s production of ‘Dirt’ at the Tranzac main space in Toronto.
As an installation artist, Jennifer designed and curated ‘Shaft’ – an annual series of concerts performed in an industrial elevator space in Toronto. The staged environments encouraged active participatory listening from the audience while musicians were given the freedom to interpret the space thematically, or challenged to present their work in a new way.The series was broadcast on CBC radio in 2006.
Jennifer’s paintings, drawings and installations have appeared in galleries and festivals in North America and Europe and and in July, 2007, she was one of eight Canadian artists chosen to exhibit in “Parca, Canada in New York”, at the 511 Gallery in Chelsea. Her work is included in the collections of Molson Breweries, Knox College University of Toronto, Canadian Almanac & directory, Copp Clark Professional, Artpool Art Resource Centre Budapest, and numerous private collections.
Musically, Jennifer studied saxophone performance at York University in Toronto with Paul Brodie, at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique  ( Paris ) with Claude
Delangle and has performed at masterclasses of  Jean – Marie Londeix ( Bordeaux, France)and James Houlic ( Asheville, U.S.A). As a performer, Jennifer represented Canada at the Tenth World Saxophone Congress in Pesaro, Italy, and has performed as a soloist and as a member of the earshot! ensemble, conTakt ensemble, All-Girls Saxophone Duet, the Sky People Saxophone Quartet, and the Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra.

Suzanne Kilgore, Administrative and Creative Director

  Suzanne Kilgore, born in Toronto, Canada, is a soprano known for her broad vocal range that also has rich, resonant qualities within the middle and lower registers.  Her main musical passions lie in German lieder, concert rep, and opera. Her most recent operatic role was that of Madama Butterfly performed with Kitchener Opera at
the Living Arts Centre in March last year. Her portrayal of the young geisha was said to be, “detailed, heartfelt and ultimately moving, winning her the biggest ovation”- Ken Winters, Globe & Mail and also “a feat of endurance, beautifully sung and acted”- Gwen and Gordon Jones, Waterloo Chronicle.

Recently Ms. Kilgore collaborated with pianist and music theorist Simon Prosser. This recital included Brahm’s Vier ernste Gesänge, and the
works of Berg, Beethoven and Puccini. She also was one of the two soloists in a performance art exhibit created by Derek Liddington for the Powerball, a VIP event that is held annually to raise funds for the PowerPlant, one of Canada’s leading contemporary art galleries. Later on Suzanne participated in another of Derek Liddington’s performance arts exhibits at Scotia Bank Nuit Blanche 2011.

In November, Suzanne was one of many featured artists within “A Little Opera for Little Babies”, a concert for the Linden Fund, a foundation for premature babies. During the summer of 2009, Suzanne collaborated with Worma, a Montreal-based sound artist who works exclusively with electronic media. Their most recent project included a remix of Bacterium’s “Oral Silence” in where Suzanne lent her vocals.

Suzanne has participated in fund raising events, was a finalist in the 2003 Anton Guadagno International Palm Beach Opera Competition, performed in concerts that featured highlighted arias and sang supporting and or main roles within regional opera companies. Her goal is to collaborate with other artists not only within the classical genre, but to also explore a wide variety of other music styles.

Her past collaboration with the Canadian composer Dr. Penelope Walcott include premiering Augeries of Innocence (for voice, piano, clarinet and violin) based on the William Blake poem. She also sang the soprano solo and part in Dr. Walcott’s Sleepy Quartet (soprano, tenor, bass and string quartet) and the soprano solo with clarinet and piano Pleasant Life in Newfoundland.
Her traditional repertoire is broad based as she had started off as a mezzo soprano and branched out into spinto soprano. Her performed roles include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (Opera Liricia Italiana, 2007), a variety of scenes as Aida, Elvira in Ernani and Leonora in Il Trovatore. Her main musical passion lies in lieder and concert rep, however, and it is her hope to collaborate in more projects that explore repertoire that is heard rarely within the recital hall.

Ms. Kilgore is a graduate of the Opera Performance Program at the University of Toronto, receiving the Canadian Opera Women’s Committee (COWC) Past President’s Scholarship two years in a row. She also studied at the RCM in the Vocal Performance Diploma Programme and the ARCT programme.

Suzanne is also an accomplished cook, writer and film aficionado. She currently resides in Toronto with her cat, Scully.