A special shout out

Posted on April 30, 2026 by operaramblings

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

Don Giovanni PR

The Division; personal, honest and very, very brave

Posted on April 29, 2026 by operaramblings

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…)

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COC’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle/Erwartung double bill still impresses after 30 years

Posted on April 27, 2026 by operaramblings

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

Orchestral music from Brett Dean

Posted on April 26, 2026 by operaramblings

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 in May 2026

Posted on April 25, 2026 by operaramblings

Coming up… music etc

May 2nd. The Artists’ Studio of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company are presenting Judith Weir’s The Black Spider. It’a very rare chance to see a Judith Weir opera in Toronto.
There are two free shows on the 4th. At noon Opera 5’s interns are performing in the RBA and in the evening it’s AtG’s Opera Pub at the Tranzac.
On the 5th there’s a sneak preview of Toronto Summer Music in the RBA at noon.
On the 6th Jane Archibald has a recital at Koerner Hall.

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A most unusual recital

Posted on April 24, 2026 by operaramblings

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.

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La pièce écossaise

Posted on April 23, 2026 by operaramblings

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.

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Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary is an interesting concept that doesn’t really come off

Posted on April 22, 2026 by operaramblings

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.

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Golijov at last

Posted on April 21, 2026 by operaramblings

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.

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Room of Keys

Posted on April 20, 2026 by operaramblings

Room of Keys is a short monodrama written for actor/pianist Adam Sherkin by David James Brock. It had a short run a couple of weeks ago in a production directed by Tom Diamond at the Nanostage on Bloor which I missed (due to getting stuck on the TTC) and was reprised on Thursday in the RBA at lunchtime; though how far they were able to reproduce the staging I’m not sure.

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