This is not intended as a a political blog though, art being what it is, it sometimes is. That said, these are not normal times and sometimes a political stand has to be taken. We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and condemn in the strongest terms the current aggression by the fascist regimes in Moscow and Minsk as well as their enablers and supporters in the United States and elsewhere.
Games of the Night Wind is a record of nocturnally inspired piano music played by Christina Petrowska Quilico. Much of the record is taken up by twelve nocturnes from Ontario composer David Jaeger. They are interspersed with pieces in similar mood by Polish composers Alexandre Tansman and Henryk Górecki and there is also a solitary piece by Tōru Takemitsu.
The Jaeger pieces were each inspired by a different piece of poetry dealing with some aspect of nocturnal experience. What they have in common is an abstracted, dreamy quality. Some are darker than others, some gentler and more lyrical and they are all interesting. Listening I was reminded of a comment of Brian Current’s to the effect that sometimes listening for things like melody, harmony and rhythm is less useful than listening for texture and I think that’s true of these pieces. They are all deeply textured but in different ways. They are played with great sensitivity.
The Enchantress (sometimes translated as The Sorceress) is a rather infrequently performed 1887 opera by Tchaikovsky. It got a production in Frankfurt in 2022 with an interesting cast. Asmik Grigorian plays the title character; Kuma or Nastasya, and Iain MacNeil, late of this parish, is Prince Nikita. It’s the first time I’ve come across him since he moved to Germany.
It’s coming towards the end of the traditional “season” but there’s sill plenty happening. Here’s how I see may shaping up at present (I expect more theatre listings will come in. They tend to be somewhat less notice!):
It’s pretty difficult to judge whether or not a high concept production of Wagner’s Ring cycle is going to work or not just from Das Rheingold but I thought Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production for Staatsoper unter den Linden recorded in 2022 was pretty promising. His world is a large research complex designated ESCHE for reasons that aren’t clear. The time period seems to be 1970s or thereabouts. The research is essentially psychological and the characters are variously executives, scientists and experimental subjects.
I went to Opera Revue at Castro’s on Sunday afternoon. It’s the first time I’ve been to a regular Opera Revue show in a while because of geographic and scheduling constraints plus, of all their locations, I prefer Castro’s and they haven’t been there in a while.
The Met HD in cinemas line up has been announced for 2024/25 so here’s my take on it. The first thing to notice is that there are only eight shows. There have been ten per season since 2012/13 and twelve before that. This is likely a reflection of the problems with audience numbers that all North American opera companies have been having. In the same time period the COC has cut back from 65-70 main stage performances per year to 42 and the Met’s “in house” audience problem has been well publicised. So what does that leave us with?
Barbara Hannigan’s latest recording project is a CD of Messiaen’s vocal music with pianist Bertrand Chamayou. It’s very much an equal pasrtnership with spme superb musicianship on display. It starts off with two cycles written for/inspired by Messiaen’s first wife. Chants de Terre et de Ciel celebrates the marriage and the birth of their young son. There’s some very dramatic singing here but what really stood out for me was Hannigan’s ability to float a note with perfect control and apparent ease. It works beautifully with the more delicate parts of the piano part.
The second set is the rather better known Poèmes pour MI. These are rather more lyrical and less dramatic songs (and heavily infused with Messiaen’s particular brand of Catholic mysticism) which really allows Hannigan and Chamayou to create a sort of “liquid” sound. Music and text flows in a really smooth way. Most of the time anyway. Where it makes dramatic sense the mood can be and is altered. In “Épouvante”, for example, an almost anguished vocalise is followed by a drop into something almost speechlike. It’s jarring but effective and feels right.
The final track is the nine minute “scena” La mort du nombre. It’s a dialogue between a “suffering soul”, sung here by tenor Charles Sy, and a more consolatory soul sung by Hannigan. For me there’s more than a touch of Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy here! Sy has just the right amount of dramatic intensity and contrasts with the second soul’s more measured music. It’s been a while since I heard Charles sing and he’s sounding really good here. Violin (Vilde Frang) joins the piano for the instrumental component and adds an extra texture that ranges from meditative to ecstatic. This is Messiaen at his most distinctive rather like the Quartet for the End of Time. It’s a great addition to the record.
The recording was made at Muziekcentrum van de Omroep in 2021 and 2022 and it’s superb. I listened to hi-resolution digital (48kHz/24bit) and it’s really detailed. You can here the sound of this piano; not just any piano! The voices are also captured superbly. The booklet contains texts and bios and a very insightful essay by Hannigan on how and why this project came to be.
The album is due for release on May 24th as a physical CD and digitally in MP3 and CD quality and 96kHz/24 bit FLAC. It’s definitely worth going for the hi-res here.
Catalogue information: Alpha Records ALPHA 1033
Woking Phoenix is a play developed and performed by Silk Bath Collective. It opened at Theatre Passe Muraille on Thursday night. It deals with that perennial Canadian issue; the immigrant experience. In this case it’s essentially a single Chinese mother with three children running a Chinese restaurant in small town Ontario. So one has the usual dynamics of kids growing up coupled with being “different” in a very homogenous community. It’s a co-creation of Aaron Jan and Gloria Mok , who also co-directed, and Besse Cheng who appears in the play as the elder daughter.
A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney by Lucas Hnath opened last night at the Young Centre in a production by Outside the March and Soulpepper. It’s one of those pieces that is perhaps easier to admire than enjoy. Technically, everything about it is excellent but sitting through ninety minutes of egotistical bullying is not a whole lot of fun.
Project Earth: The Blue Chapter is the first in a projected series of CDs from the Iris Trio (Christine Carter – clarinet, Anna Petrovna – piano, Zoë Martin-Doike – viola) dealing with environmental issues. This one blends music by Florian Hoefner with poems by Don McKay. The longest piece on the CD is the multi-movement Bird Island Suite inspired by the bird life of nesting islands around Newfoundland but really dealing with broader issues of how we interact with and influence the natural world for good or ill. Usually the latter. Continue reading
operaramblings 