Toronto Star

Here is what Richard Bradshaw, the intractable director of the Canadian Opera Company, thinks of Jack Diamond, the tenacious architect who designed Toronto's new opera house: "Brilliant. Obsessed. And sometimes unaware that his excitement in what he is trying to convey is seen as a form of arrogance - aggressive arrogance." In the competitive drawing rooms of Toronto architects there is chatter about the size and vitality of Diamond's ego. No one will say this on the record. But some will generously set aside the time to tell how they would have built the opera house had the contract not gone to Diamond in 1998 after the opera company's second-round call for proposals. The reason why Bradshaw wanted to deal head-on with the Diamond ego issue is simple.