Kaffeehaus is the Toronto Bach Festival’s somewhat less formal concert. It played twice on Saturday at Church of the Holy Trinity and we caught the evening show. It’s set up to replicate Herr Zimmermann’s coffee house in Leipzig with RH Thomson playing Zimmermann. It’s staged in the round with a central stage surrounded by cafe style tables with extra seating around the edges. Coffee (not recommended!), tea, wine and beer are available. It’s quite a fun concept though the “in the round” set up means one is looking at people’s backs rather a lot!
The main work on the programme was Bach’s cantata Hercules am Scheidewege, BWV 213 with various other pieces and interventions by Herr Zimmermann inserted between numbers. There was some excellent singing from countertenor Nicholas Burns as Hercules, soprano Sherezade Panthaki as Pleasure, tenor Asitha Tennekoon as Virtue and bass Stephen Hegedus as Mercury. A small ensemble including valveless horns provided excellent accompaniment. Toronto has some excellent baroque musicians and with the likes of John Abberger, Julie Wedman and Chris Bagan performing it was as good as one would expect. It was also quite imaginatively set up with some singing from the periphery as well as the stage creating an antiphonal effect.
Additional music included the overture from Handel’s Hercules, the Pachelbel Canon and Telemann’s Concerto for Four Violins played extremely well by four young violinists from UoT’s Collegium Musicum.
The death last week of Dame Felicity Lott had me thinking about English singers of that generation who featured a lot in the first live opera and recordings that I experienced back in the 1970s. A bit of digging around led me to a 1993 recording of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with Philip Langridge (who died in 2010) as Quint and Felicity Lott (not yet a Dame) as the Governess. It also, perhaps surprisingly, features American Wagnerian Nadine Secunde as Miss Jessel. Less surprisingly, it was recorded in Aldeburgh with Steuart Bedford conducting.
As has become the custom, the two members of the Ensemble Studio completing their stints at the end of this season gave a “Les adieux” recital in the RBA on Tuesday. It was time to say goodbye to Emily Rocha and Duncan Stenhouse with Liz Upchurch as our stalwart accompanist.
operaramblings 