Author Archives: operaramblings

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About operaramblings

Toronto based lover of opera, art song, related music and all forms of theatre.

Into 2020

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newyearSo what do the first couple of weeks of 2020 hold.  First up Toronto Operetta Theatre their traditional Mew Year run.  his year it’s Johann Strauss’ The Gypsy Baron and there are five shows between December 28th and January 5th. The cast includes Michael Barrett, Meghan Lindsey and Beste Kalender.  It plays at the St. Lawrence Centre.

If you can even contemplate the thought of another late night drinking Against the Grain’s Opera Pub is on at 9pm on January 2nd at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club.  The following night tenor Zach Rioux has a free recital of mostly Italian rep in Mazzoleni Hall at 7.30pm (ETA CANCELLED).

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Crowded, dirty, dangerous

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The Ward Cabaret, which opened at Harbourfront last night, is an exuberant celebration of the Ward; a Toronto neighbourhood that once covered the area bounded by Queen and College and Yonge and University.  From the mid 1800s until well into the 20th century it was far from the highly respectable quartier it’s become.  It was the first landing place for immigrants; Irish, Jews, Chinese, fugitive slaves, Italians.  A neighbourhood of low rent housing, cheap restaurants, the factories that fed Mr. Eaton’s catalogue and a bunch of rather more dubious businesses.  The City Fathers hated it but it had a life of its own that David Buchbinder (he of Yiddish Glory) and his team have turned into a spectacular evening of theatre/cabaret.

The Ward-Cabaret-04682 photo by Ed Hanley

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Fairytales and Lullabyes

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Yesterday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA was the last for the year in the vocal series and featured members of the Ensemble Studio.  Rachael Kerr was scheduled to do about half the accompanying but illness prevented her from playing so some hasty reprogramming meant that what we got differed somewhat from the printed programme but it was still a very well put together effort.

191210-FairytalesAndLullabies_15

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Electric Messiah again

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It’s the fifth year that Soundstreams has put on Electric Messiah which I guess means it’s pretty much becoming a holiday tradition.  This iteration may just be the best yet.  This version seemed quite stripped down compared to some years and all the better for it.  It’s centred around rearranged (and shortened) excerpts from the Handel work supplemented with some personal touches for the cast.  This time the “band” was Wesley Shen on harpsichord, Joel Visentin on keyboards and electric organ, Joel Schwartz on assorted acoustic and electric guitars and Adam Scime directing from the (laptop) keyboard which controlled lots of effective electronics.  SlowPitchSound was there on turntables with Lybido dancing.

ElecMessiah2019-photobyDahliaKatz-8729

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The Confession Stone

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I wanted to listen to Robert Fleming’s song cycle The Confession Stone today but I didn’t appear to have a recording in my strangely eclectic collection of physical and digital recordings.  There’s nothing either on any of the umpty ump labels distributed by Naxos USA (lucky me has pretty much unlimited access tot heir digital catalogue) so off I went to YouTube.  And I found a lovely recording by the talented duo of Wallis Giunta and Steven Philcox.  Enjoy.

 

Carmen #YesAllWomen

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Loose Tea Music Theatre’s Carmen #YesAllWomen has been in the works for three years.  It went “live” this week with a production at Heliconian Hall.  It’s an intriguing show.  Dramatically and musically it’s recognisably based on Bizet’s Carmen but only just.  In Alaina Viau and Monica Pearce’s version the principal male character is one John Anderson, an Afghanistan vet with PTSD, his rival for Carmen is a rapper, Maximillian aka Hot God, and Michaela is Anderson’s estranged wife.

Carmen#yesallwomen2019-photobyDahliaKatz-4953

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Figaro’s Wedding at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse

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Last night saw the first performance of a run of eleven in Against the Grain Theatre’s revival of their 2013 hit Figaro’s Wedding.  It’s essentially the same show.  Director/librettist Joel Ivany has made a number of tweaks and updates but the main differences lie in what the singers bring to their characters.

1_L-R_Alexandra Smither and Bruno Roy, Photo by Taylor Long

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Marcel d’Entremont in the RBA

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The 2018 Wirth Song Prize winner tenor Marcel d’Entremont gave the customary recital in the RBA at noon yesterday accompanied by Dakota Scott-Digout.  It was an interesting choice of material; nicely balanced between old and new worlds.  He started with Ravel’s Cinq mélodies populaires grecques.  I guess these set the tone for the recital.  Marcel has a very operatic voice.  It’s big with quite a lot of vibrato.  The Ravel was loud but nicely characterized and sung in perfect French.  He followed up with a rousing. but not overly subtle, Kuda, kuda.   I was beginning to find things a bit one dimensional.

mdentremont.jpg

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Getting intimate with Figaro and Susanna

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rachaelkerrI chatted this morning with Rachael Kerr; music director of Against the Grain’s upcoming Figaro’s Wedding.  I saw the original version back in 2013 and was wondering what might be different this time.  I also wondered whether there might be some insights to be gained by approaching it from the perspective of the music rather than the libretto.  Hence my decision to talk to Rachael rather than other members of the team.

I think I lucked in.  It proved to be a most interesting conversation which ultimately turned on why this would be an engaging show and how that turned on “intimacy”.  So first let’s review the elements of the show: Continue reading →