Next month the opera programme at the Glenn Gould School will be offering a double bill of Rossini’s La cambiale di matrimonio and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.. On Tuesday there was a concert of excerpts from the two operas in the RBA.

The Rossini is his first opera and it concerns a down on his luck Englishman trying to marry his daughter off to a rich Canadian (I kid you not).  It’s very “shape of things to come” with rapid fire patter numbers for the baritone plus equally crazy ensemble numbers with some more lyrical material for the sopranos (two of them in this case).  There was some very agile singing from Alannah Beauparlant, Matthew Black and Gabriel Klassen with soprano arias from Alannah and Alyssa Bartholomew.  James Coole Styevenson gave a pretty funny cameo as the Canadian Slook in a very silly duet with Gabriel.  Good fun!

Gianni Schicchi is, of course, much better known though a bit short on concert suitable arias.  In fact we got two.  Jeffrey Lui made a nice fist of Rinuccio’s “Avete torto… Firenze è come un albert fiorito” and Leandra Dahm produced a rather lovely version of, you’ve guessed it, “O mio babbino caro”.

The longest scene though was the one where Schicchi is outlining his cunning plan while the various members of the Donati clan try to bribe him into favouring them.  James Coole-Stevenson was a very impressive Schicchi with terrific body language as well as solid singing.  The Donatis; Charlotte Anderson, Daniela Herrera Carreon, JJada Alexiou, Nicholas Kuftinger, Callum Aldworth, Matthew Black and Tyler Prince managed the crazy antics with a good deal of physical and vocal humour which bodes well for the main stage version.  Our Rinuccio and Lauretta finished things off with a rather nice “Lauretta mia”.

The GGS double bill plays at Koerner Hall on March 18th and 20th and tickets are available through the usual RCM channels.

Photo credit: Karen E. Reeves