So what’s in store for Toronto early in the New Year?
- December 29th 2024 and January 3rd and 4th 2025, Toronto Operetta Theatre are presenting Kalman’s Countess Maritza at the Jane Mallett Theatre.
- Bad New Days are presenting Adam Paolozza’s Last Landscape; a meditation on environmental collapse, at Buddies in Bad Times. Preview is on the 12th with opening on the 14th and running until the 26th.
- Also on the 14th there’s a chance to see Danika Lorèn in conversation at Walter Hall at 12.10pm.
- Liz Appel’s Wights plays at Crow’s Theatre. Previews are 7th to 14th with opening on the 15th running to February 9th. To quote; “Wights delves into the intricate power of language and its profound influence on our connections, our society, and the very fabric of reality.”
- Also on the 15th Sara Schabas is singing in the RBA at lunchtime.
- Necessary Angel Theatre Company and Canadian Stage are presenting Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Winter Solstice; another play dealing with the rise of the “New Right”. It’s at Berkeley Street and previews are 14th to 16th with opening on the 17th and running until February 2nd.
- January 18th to 25th sees the 21C festival of contemporary music in various venues at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Always a great way to catch up on new and emerging composers and performers.
- CanStage have a revival of Albee’s Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Bluma Appel. Previews are 18th to 22nd with opening on the 23rd and the run continuing to February 9th.
- Canadian Opera Company opens it’s winter season on the 24th with Puccinis’s Madama Butterfly with eight performances to February 16th. Bilodeau and Bouchard’s La Reine Garçon opens on the 31st with seven performances to February 15th.
- There are lunchtime concerts in the RBA on the 29th and 30th with Sam Chan and Teiya Kasahara performing a concert each.
operaramblings 
Is Maritza with an orchestra or a piano reduction and who’s playing? Their website doesn’t say. Nor about the libretto: I presume it’s an adapted English libretto, not the German original? Whose translation/adaptation? So many questions…
English with chamber ensemble (usually 7-8 players). Conducted by Derek Bate, with stage direction by Silva-Marin, the stars are Holly Chaplin as the glamorous heiress Maritza and tenor Scott Rumble as Tassilo. Patricia Wrigglesworth as his sister Countess
Lisa and Joshua Clemenger as Zsupan,
Excellent, thx. They should have put the info on music front and centre; chambre ensemble sounds good.
Oh sh*t, tickets hover around $100, and no sliding scale of any kind (student, senior, arts worker, rush). Those up in the rafters which cost a little less are headache-inducing. And this is how I end up not going to TOT shows.