Christina Anderson’s How to Catch Creation is a very cleverly constructed play that sucks the audience into it’s world of shifting relationships and coincidences that, at first blush, seem too pat. Along the way it explores what makes us creative and what makes us lose our creativity and, interestingly, how that’s related to the most basic act of creativity, biological reproduction. It’s currently playing at the Young Centre ina production directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu.
Don Giovanni!
I wanted to give a shout out to a one off performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni coming up later this month as it’s in support of a good cause; the Redwood Women’s Shelter. Appropriately the show is at the Redwood Theatre on Gerrard East (an interesting space with an excellent bar if you haven’t been there before.) It’s on May 22nd at 8pm with a talk by Michael Jones of Opera Canada at 7.15pm.
It’s piano accompaniment (Brahm Goldhammer) and I suspect it’s basically arias with narration format but it’s an excellent cast headed up by Alex Hajek as the Don. Tickets start at $50 and are available at:
https://www.theredwoodtheatre.com/event-details/don-giovanni
And there’s early bird discount code DG2026 for 20% off tickets.
The full details including casting are in the linked document
Andrew Kushnir’s new play, The Division, currently playing in the Studio at Crow’s Theatre, is both a very personal story and an interrogation of some very uncomfortable aspects of Ukrainian history. It’s told, in the present, as a letter to Kushnir’s nephew to be read in maybe fifteen years time when, perhaps, it will be easier to divorce history from current events (and then maybe not…)
My review of the COC’s excellent revival production of the Robert Lepage double bill of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Schoenberg’s Erwartung is now published at Bachtrack.
Christian Van Horn and Karen Cargill in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle – Photo: Michael Cooper
@bachtrack
The latest recording of Australian composer Brett Dean’s music on the BIS label contains three quite substantial pieces. The first is a violin concerto in three movements; The Lost Art of Letter Writing which is played by Frank Peter Zimmermann with the Sydney Symphony conducted by Jonathan Nott. The four movements are each inspired by a 19th century letter (the details can be found here). Collectively they form a fairly conventional concerto structure; a fast movement, a slow movement, a sort of scherzo and a very fast, busy and insistent conclusion. It’s complex, dense and chromatic music that sometimes builds tension much in the manner of Shostakovich though Dean’s way of resolving that tension is very different. It’s a really rewarding piece. Continue reading
Coming up… music etc
Thursday lunchtime at Metropolitan United was, I think, the first time I’ve attended a recital of music for soprano and clarinet. The performers were soprano Noelle Slaney and clarinettist Matheus Coelho. Most of the music was performed “as written” with a few pieces rearranged by Noelle.
There’s a French version of Verdi’s Macbeth dating from 1865 and based on the 1847 Italian version. It was performed at the Verdi festival in Parma in 2024 and recorded for video. It’s not enormously different from the original though, unsurprisingly, there’s more ballet (at the beginning of Act 3). The ending is just as weirdly abrupt at least (*). In 1847 this was a transitional work with Verdi moving away from bel canto but here’s there’s still lots of rather jolly music accompanying either sinister or bloody scenes. By 1865 that must have sounded a bit odd.
Erin Shields’ Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary is currently playing at Crow’s theatre in a production directed by Ellen McDougall. It aims to shed new light on the Gospel stories by seeing them through the eyes of four Mary’s; the mother of Jesus (Michelle Monteith), Mary Magdalene (Sabryn Rock), Lazarus’ sister (Belinda Corpuz) and the mother of James and Joseph (Nancy Palk). It doesn’t really provide much illumination.
The 21C concert of music by Osvaldo Golijov, postponed on account of the January blizzard, finally got presented at Mazzoleni Hall on Sunday afternoon. There was a varied line up of professional musicians, GGS students and members of the taylor Academy on display fro the various numbers; all of which were contextualized historically and musically by Barry Shiffman.
operaramblings 