So here goes the usual annual round up of the best things I’ve come across in a very busy 2023.

Opera – It’s been a rather thin year for opera in Toronto.  The indie scene has been slow to make a comeback and programming at the COC has been ultra conservative.  There have been some worthy efforts at both UoT Opera and the Glenn Gould School but nothing quite up to “best of” standard.  So my first pick is Salome at the COC; largely for Ambur Braid’s performance of the title role with bonus points for Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils spin off.  I was also very impressed with Opera Atelier’s take on Handel’s La resurrezione.  It’s one of the best things they have done in a while with a particularly moving performance by Meghan Lindsey as Mary Magdalene.  The one really notable indie show of the year was Against the Grain’s chamber scale version of Bartók’s Duke Blubeard’s Castle with Gerald Finley and Charlotte Hellekant.

Song Recitals – Actually not a bad year for song recitals.  First and probably my favourite of the year was Emily D’Angelo at Koerner in February.  This was a far from safe and conventional Liederabend rather focussing on contemporary works and women composers.  The best of many song recitals in the RBA was probably Alex Roth’s Songs in Time of War performed by Lawrence Wiliford and friends; more innovation in the song world.  My final pick is J’nai Bridges at Toronto Summer Music jumping in very late for Sondra Radvanovsky.  Anyone who turned their tickets in because Sondra didn’t show missed some very fine singing.

Choral and Orchestral – I didn’t go to a lot of orchestral or choral concerts in 2023.  There just wasn’t a lot programmed that I fancied.  I did really enjoy Hymns to Night in a candle lit Temerty Hall as part of 21C.  It was a varied programme of contemporary works much enhanced by Brian Current’s really helpful intros.  I was also moved by the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers’ concert built around David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion at the Church of the Holy Trinity.

Chamber Music – A couple of concerts stood out in this category.  There was the opening night of Toronto Summer Music at Koerner Hall where pianists John Kimura Parker and Ilia Ovcharenko displayed serious virtuosity and produced some very fine music with the help of some notable drafted string players.  There were also some interesting concerts from Brad Cherwin and friends under different brands.  The pick for me was October’s We’re Late by the Happenstancers at Redeemer Lutheran.  The theme was clocks and time and it was explored with humour and great musicianship.

Theatre – If some areas of the classical arts are struggling in Toronto, theatre is going great guns.  There was far more I wanted to see than I could possibly manage and my long list for this section was long!  I’ve cut it down to just four shows.  First up in January was Fifteen Dogs at Crow’s Theatre; an adaptation of the Andre Alexis novel.  This was just wonderful ensemble acting and an imaginative staging.  To be honest there wasn’t much at Crow’s in 2023 that was far from the “best of list.  Armadillos by Colleen Wagner at Factory Theatre was a complex and disturbing example of how the old stories can still make terrific, relevant theatre.  Daniel McIvor’s Monster also at Factory Theatre was a one man tour de force by Karl Ang.  As disturbing and complex as Armadillos in its way it was a text book example of how less can be more.  And, finally, to the show of the year regardless of category.  It’s the brilliantly funny and laser sharp The Masterplan by Michael Healey that played at Crow’s in September.  Big tech hubris meets the banality of Canadian municipal politics.  It’s Google versus Frances Nunziata and a maple tree emerges as the winner.  It’s hilarious and terribly, terribly depressing.

Special Award for Silliness – This of course goes to Opera Revue for “gala” shows at The Revival and The Dakota Tavern, innumerable pop ups in bars and pubs around the city, satirical short videos and even a tour to those benighted regions of Ontario that aren’t lucky enough to be Toronto.

Video recordings – I’d say 2023 has seen a lot of good new video releases but not too many really great ones.  Two did stand out for me though and they both hail from Covent Garden.  The first is a production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale by Damiani Michieletto with Bryn Terfel in the title role.  He’s very good indeed and Olga Peretyatko is pretty much perfect as Norina.  The production is clever without being OTT and the technical values are right up there.  The other is a thought provoking staging of Handel’s Theodora by Katie Mitchell.  It’s disturbing and thought provoking with a sting in the tail and some excellent performances.  I found it as deeply moving as the classic Peter Sellars production.  I was also very impressed by Barrie Kosky’s production of Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová in Salzburg which is has psychological depth and brilliant performances by Corinne Winters and Evelyn Herlitzius.

CD recordings – The CD category produced a long, long list which I’ve narrowed down to a handful of outstanding recordings.  Top pick for me is the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s recording of John Corigliano’s The Lord of Cries.  This is a brilliant new opera setting a very clever libretto by Mark Adomo that transposes Euripides Bacchae to 19th century London with some help from Bram Stoker.  Everything about the CD release is excellent too and it’s available in SACD format.  Very different in so many ways is I Gemelli’s carefully reconstructed performance of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria with a particularly compelling performance from Rihab Chaieb as Penelope.  A considerable bonus is that it comes packaged as a very fine hard back book.  My best discovery in my exploration of 19th century French opera was a Bru Zane recording of Spontini’s very interesting La vestale.  It gets a very fresh treatment that makes a compelling case for the opera and, of course, it’s got the usual informative Bru Zane documentation.  In the field of instrumental music I’m going for Missy Mazzoli’s Dark With Excessive Bright.  It’s music for orchestra or ensemble recorded by various groups in Northern Norway.  It’s not only really interesting music but it’s a SACD release and the technical quality is right up there.  On a completely different note I was also deeply affected by Payadora Tango Ensemble’s Silent Tears which sets poems by Holocaust survivors to music in the style of inter-war Jewish Tango.

So, 2023 felt almost like the world was getting back to normal.  The state of the opera world in Toronto (and North America generally) is still a bit disturbing.  The COC seems to be in a deeply conservative rut while the indies are slow to make a comeback.  There’s also a dearth of art song (though some of what there has been has been very good).  key sponsors have passed on and key organisers have moved away and, as yet, emerging musicians haven’t displayed the hunger to create performance opportunities that were quite common pre-plague.  The theatre though is doing just fine.  Houses are full and audiences are diverse ethnically and in terms of age in exactly the way the opera audience isn’t.  Maybe it’s because the theatres are programming new work on themes people can relate to rather than recycling 10 or 12 works from the long 19th century ad nauseam?  There’s a thought.

Statistically, here’s what I got up to in 2023.  I reviewed 121 live shows in various genres, 63 CDs or CD sets and 33 DVD/Blu-rays.  I also published 47 assorted other news, listings, interviews etc posts for a grand total of 264 posts.  It was also the best year in terms of readership since 2015 which is gratifying.