Miecysłav Weinberg’s The Idiot, based on the Dostoevsky novel, was composed in 1986/7 but didn’t get a full premiere until 2013 in Mannheim. The neglect of Weinberg’s music in USSR/Russia is probably explained by him being a Polish Jew but why he’s so little known elsewhere is a bit of a mystery as The Idiot shows that The Passenger wasn’t a fluke. Anyway, The Idiot got a second outing at Salzburg in 2024 in a rather complex production by Krysztof Warlikowski.
Some time ago I reviewed Leslie Ting’s CD set What Brings You In; noting that it was music “that was composed for performance as part of an art installation or a site specific performance or as therapy rather than a conventional concert hall experience”. On Sunday I got to hear it as part of Leslie’s show at Theatre Passe Muraille.
It’s always interesting when a top notch baritone (especially a native German speaker) and a first rate concert pianist get together to do Schubert’s Winterreise, which is, I suppose, the pinnacle of the Lieder repertory. That’s what we got at Koerner Hall on Thursday with a performance by Matthias Goerne and Daniil Trifonov.
Regular readers will know that I’ve seen my fair share of shows by Opera Revue but pretty much always in a bar or pub and as the band always says “The more you drink, the better we sound”. Thus it was with some trepidation that I went to see them in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre on Wednesday. It was the core gang; Danie Friesen, Alex Hajek, Claire Harris. No ringers (except for the person who forgot to turn off their phone).
So LIBLAB is back and the pick of the fruits of the latest version form Tapestry Briefs: Under Where? currently playing at the Nancy and Ed Jackman Performance Centre. There are eleven sketches involving four composers, three librettists, three singers plus Keith Klassen who does all three. Also two pianists and two directors.
Opera Atelier opened a run of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (in English) at the Elgin on Wednesday evening. It’s basically the 1991 production (tweaked in 2013) and features a rather spectacular Queen of the Night. Full review at Opera Canada.
Photo: Bruce Zinger
I don’t think I’ve been as frustrated by a video recording of an opera since I watched the 2007 recording of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland. This time the culprit is a recording of the 2024 production of Prokofiev’s The Gambler at the Salzburg Festival. It’s a Peter Sellars production set in the Felsenreitschule and it’s fascinating on many levels. The problem is that, as is wont, Sellars directs the video too and he seems to think people watch opera videos on their phones. There’s been a welcome trend since the advent of HD cameras to, generally, show as much of the stage action as possible and ration extreme close ups. Sellars takes the opposite approach and it drives me nuts. Not only do I feel that I’m missing a lot; especially in the cavernous Felsenreitschule, but I just don’t need to know how fast Asmik Gregorian is moving her tongue when she’s going for fast vibrato.
The latest short animation from the Canadian Art Song Project is extremely quirky and about as steeped in a certain kind of Canadian nostalgia as one could possibly get. It’s called The Piece Atop His Pate and appears to be about Bobby Hull losing his wig in a hockey fight although it may also be lamenting the NHL mandating helmets. I’m really not sure.. Why this is seen as a significant event in Canadian history also puzzles me but apparently it’s worth writing a song about.
The words are by Bill Richardson with rather percussive music by Jocelyn Mortlock. It’s performed with spirit by Keith Lam and Steven Philcox and it’s accompanied by rather cute Saturday morning cartoon style animation by OCAD students. Here’s the Youtube link. Perhaps it helps to watch it in your underwear while drinking a Molson Export.
Mariane Clément’s production of Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann recorded at the 2024 Salzburg Festival is not the sort of production that one dismisses as pointless and/or ill conceived but it is complex and difficult to read; at least on first viewing. That said, being on video rather than live probably doesn’t help.
There’s a lot to like in the COC’s revival of Robert Carsen’s production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice that opened at the Four Seasons Centre on Thursday evening. I don’t think Gluck gets much better. Full review at bachtrack.com.
Photo: Michael Cooper
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