This year’s offering from the UoT Opera Student Composers Collective was a piece about the history of Jarvis Street called Avenue of Avarice.  It played in the Fleck Dance Theatre on Sunday afternoon in a production directed by Mario Pacheco.

The libretto by, of course, Michael Patrick Albano, takes us in four scenes from the early 20th century to the present; a period in which Jarvis Street goes from opulent to sleazy and, perhaps, back again.(*). Along the way we get music by four composers and get to see/hear all the singers in the masters and diploma programmes at UoT.

The first scene (music by Ashley Renee Seward) is set in the Massey family home (now The Keg Mansion) where young Raymond is sneaking out at night to the horror of his mother who is convinced he is Toronto’s Jack the Ripper.  The reality is far worse.  He is training to be an actor.  Christian Matta gives a very cute performance as young Raymond Massey well supported by Camille Labonte and Benjamin Wallace as the parents.

Fast forward 25 years or so to the bootleg era where Machine Gun Mabel (Katherine Kirkpatrick) and her gang (Enquan Yu, Onur Hilaloğlu and Dante Mullin Santone, are servicing orders for US customers.  Mabel totes a very cute red miniature SMG and falls in love with one of the boys over sardines in the Don Gaol (as you do).  Music by Candace Bustard.  Nicely done!

To the 1950s and Jarvis has become Toronto’s Red Light District.  The Madam (Teresa Tucci) is trying desperately to actually make some money from her girls (Keenia Kourtorjevski, Jordana Goddard and Grace Roman) in a cathouse that can be transformed into a convent at short notice when cover is required.  This is trigerred by the surprise visit by a couple (Carlo Cormier and Chihiro Yasufuku) purporting to be a local priest and a nun from the mother house. Our vestment clad girls try desperately to be nunnish but can’t prevent Father Malone extracting the takings as a charitable donation.  But he and Sister Clothilde are not what they seem… Music by Rita Yung.

The final scene, set in the present, is the only one that touches on serious content.  A woman (Taline Yeremian) is squatting in the run down mansion that was her childhood home.  The Homeowner (Aemilia Moser) has just bought it as a fixer upper and is in the process of finalising the deal with her real estate agent (Cameron Mazzei) and getting started on the reno with her interior decorator (George Theodorakoupoulos).  Never mind that a house on Jarvis that’s been empty for yars and before that was a rooming house is going to need rather more than interior decoration!  After the usual gentrification and interior decorator gags the two women find each other and talk.  The Homeowner makes over the house to the Homeless Woman.  Music by Elienna Wang.  Cue a very kinetic guest appearance by Teresa Tucci as the Homeless Woman as a child.

Unlike some previous SOC productions this one really doesn’t have any stars.  It’s a very solid all around effort in which everybody contributes.  None of the music is exactly memorable but it works as music theatre and is very singable.  Acting and singing across the board is of a very good standard and it’s visually attractive largely through the very effective use of projections by Gabriel Cropley.  Add in Sandra Horst’s efficient conducting of a seven piece ensemble placed to the side of the stage and it all makes for a pretty satisfactory Sunday afternoon’s entertainment.

The whole thing can be seen on the UoT Music channel on Youtube here.  The first picture is a screen shot from the video.  The other three are by Gene Wu.

(*)The thing that gets me about Jarvis Street and Sherbourne, which I use more as it has a bike lane (thanks for nothing Rob Ford), is how they go from quite upscale to really sleazy in a space of a 100m and, of course, back from the main street frontage it’s mostly really expensive real estate.