The Glenn Gould School’s Fall Chamber Opera offering this year was four short pieces from Tapestry Opera’s back catalogue.  First up was Ice Time by Ka Nin Chan and Mark Brownell.  It’s the story of a has been ice skater and her futile attempts to get her daughter, who wants to be a civil engineer, to follow in her footsteps (or icy equivalent).  The music is in much the same vein as other works by this composer such as Dragon’s Tale.  It’s a pretty light hearted piece and it got a lively and credible account from Emma Pennell as the daughter and Alexa Frankian as the mother.  As with the other pieces direction was by Dana Fradkin with accompaniment by chamber ensemble conducted by Peter Tiefenbach.

Next up was the very short The Perfect Match  by Anthony Young and Krista Dalby.  To quote canadianoperaresource.com “Two sock puppets long for something more than their dreary lives. They bump into each other on the street, and it doesn’t take long for them to recognize they’re each other’s perfect match!”.  It’s very silly but nicely executed by tenor Yannik Gosselin and baritone Simon Gidora.

The Laurels by Jeffrey Ryan and Michael Lewis MacLennan is much darker.  A woman (Emma MacNeil) is on the run from the memory of a murder she has committed but her victim (Colin Mackey) haunts her and there is only one way to rid herself of him.  This was very cleverly done with other members of the cast strategically moving blocks to suggest the Woman’s entrapment.  Good use also of the whole stage and auditorium of Mazzoleni Hall and interesting.blues inflected, music.

After the interval came the longest piece on the programme; Abigail Richardson and Alexis Diamond’s The Perfect Screw.  On the surface it’s about the competing merits of the Philips and Robertson screws but someone it manages to work in the border line illegal capitalist voraciousness of Henry Ford and the whole messy business of Canada/US relations.  Plus, of course, more double entendres than an episode of the Benny Hill Show.

It got a tremendously energetic performance from countertenor Christian Masucci Facchini as Ford, Yanik Gosselin as the stalwartly Canadian Robertson, Simon Gidora as the sappy Philips and Olivia Morton as the craftsperson Amalia.  Greed triumphs over workmanship as a leather clad Ford leads his chosen screw away on a leash.  Robertson, of course, is screwed with only Amalia and Canadian Tire to comfort him.  It’s really quite funny and the music is varied and inventive.

It was a pretty short evening but a fun one with some fine performances all round.  It’s being repeated tonight (Saturday) at 7.30pm.

Photo credits: Taylor Long