Urjo Kareda (February 9, 1944 – December 26, 2001) was an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n-born

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

theatre and music critic,

dramaturge A dramaturge or dramaturg is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programmes (or helps others with these tasks), consults auth ...

and stage director. Kareda was born in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

. His parents fled the Soviet occupation of Estonia in the autumn of 1944, escaping first to Sweden, where Kareda attended schools. At age five, the family moved to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

, where his father, journalist Endel Kareda, helped to establish ''Meie Elu'' (''Our Life''), an Estonian weekly newspaper for the Estonian diaspora in Canada. After working as a theatre critic for the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...

'' in the early 1970s, Kareda was Literary Manager at the Stratford Festival during the tenure of Artistic Director

Robin Phillips Robin Phillips OC (28 February 1940 – 25 July 2015) was an English actor and film director. Life He was born in Haslemere, Surrey in 1940 to Ellen Anne (née Barfoot) and James William Phillips. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic, where a c ...

. He and a team of three other directors (

Martha Henry Martha Kathleen Henry (née Buhs; February 17, 1938October 21, 2021) was an American-born Canadian stage, film, and television actress. She was noted for her work at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario. Early life and training Martha ...

, Pam Brighton, and Peter Moss) were hired to lead Stratford's 1981 season after Phillips' resignation, but the subsequent dismissal of the team a few months later caused several Stratford veterans to decide to work away from the Festival for some years.Martin Knelman, A Stratford Tempest. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982, 240 p. He was artistic director of the

Tarragon Theatre The Tarragon Theatre is a theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the main centers for contemporary playwriting in the country.

of Toronto from 1982 until his death on December 26, 2001, of cancer. Kareda also wrote for several publications and was an arts commentator for the CBC. He served for many years as the Toronto correspondent for '' Opera News'' magazine.

Honours

His honours included the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the cen ...

(1995); the City of Toronto Award for the Performing Arts (1999); and the Chalmers National Award for Artistic Direction (2000). He was also the recipient of a special honorary Dora Mavor Moore Award.

References

External links

Urjo Kareda fonds (R9909)
at Library and Archives Canada {{DEFAULTSORT:Kareda, Urjo 1944 births 2001 deaths Canadian music critics Canadian women music critics People from Tallinn Estonian emigrants to Canada Dramaturges 20th-century dramatists and playwrights Members of the Order of Canada Estonian World War II refugees Canadian artistic directors