The Canadian Opera Company’s ninth annual Ensemble Studio Competition is being held on October 30, 2019 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. The 2019 finalists are: sopranos Kirsten LeBlanc (Moncton, NB), Midori Marsh (Cleveland, Ohio), and Charlotte Siegel (Toronto, ON); mezzo-soprano Sarah Bissonnette (Boucherville, QC); tenor Marcel d’Entremont (Merigomish, NS); bass-baritone Alex Halliday (St. John’s, NL); and bass Brenden Friesen (Langham, SK).
I met with Laurie Rubin today to talk about her upcoming show with Liz Upchurch and Amplified Opera; The Way I See It. Laurie is a mezzo-soprano and she’s been blind since birth. All she can perceive visually is dark and light. We talked about her life growing up and as a professional singer and the upcoming show.
The bio is interesting going from a fairly toxic high school environment in Los Angeles where music was pretty much her salvation, to Oberlin where she first appeared on stage in actual opera to Yale Opera, which took her on the strength of her voice and then didn’t cast her in anything in her two years there (which clearly still hurts), and on to a professional career based in New York. She’s done a lot of new music including creating the role of the voice/witch in Lisa Bielawa’s episodic opera, Vireo, written for broadcast which aired in June 2017 on KCET Los Angeles and creating, with her wife Jenny Taira, an arts program in Hawaii; Ohana Arts, which in turn led to the creation of a musical Peace on Your Wings, about the life of a young Japanese girl who suffered from the Hiroshima bomb, which toured the Hawaiian islands and the US west coast. If all this, and performances too numerous to list, weren’t enough she wrote a book, Do You Dream in Color? Insights From a Girl Without Sight, which in turn became a one woman show. She has also recently become a mother.
Acquanetta; music by Michael Gordon, libretto by Deborah Artman, is a one act chamber opera in ten scenes lasting around 70 minutes. It’s a sort of homage to the B movie horror genre and specifically riffs off the 1943 film Captive Wild Woman in which a mad scientist turns an ape into a sultry temptress. The opera got its North American premier in Brooklyn in January 2018 and was reviewed by Patrick Dillon in Opera Canada Volume LVIII No. 4. Subsequently a CD version was recorded in the studio.
Yesterday’s lunchtime recital in the RBA was given by soprano, Vanessa Vasquez and pianist Miloš Repický. It was a well constructed programme though there were few surprises. The first set was three Strauss standards; Ständchen, Breit’ übermein Haupt and Befreit; the last dedicated to Vanessa’s teacher who died recently. They were all well sung with appropriate emotional emphasis and, best of all, both performers appeared to be enjoying themselves.
My quest to find a production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly that has anything insightful to say about the piece continues. This time it’s the 2018 production from Glyndebourne directed by Annilese Miskimmon. I was interested to see how a female director would treat the obvious problems with the piece. Miskimmon’s solution is to shift the setting to early 1950s Nagasaki and to treat Butterfly as one of many real and fake war brides. Apparently there was a thriving fake war bride business at the time. The obvious problem of a Nagasaki setting is just ignored.
My review of the COC’s Turandot is now up on Bachtrack.
Tamara Wilson (foreground) as Turandot in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Turandot, 2019, photo: Michael Cooper
Canadian Art Song Project has just brought out a podcast on the important issue of how Ingigenous stories and music are represented in Western art music. Besides regulars Lance Wiliford and Steven Philcox, the podcast features mezzo-soprano Marion Newman and composer Ian Cusson. You can listen to or download the podcast here
Then on October 13th at 7:30 pm the CBC will livestream Against the Grain’s La Bohème from the Tranzac Club directly to your personal devices via CBC Gem.
Also… Turandot at the COC. My review will be up on Bachtrack once it’s through the editorial process. I’ll post links.
September 28th is shaping up as a bit daft from a scheduling point of view. I’ll be at the opening of Turandot at the COC but there are at least two other options. Confluence have a celebration of Clara Schumann at St. Thomas’ Church on Huron Street at 8pm. It features pianists Angela Park and Christopher Bagan, soprano Patricia O’Callaghan, actor Alison Beckwith, and violinist Ellie Sievers. The same day at 4pm Toronto Operetta Theatre have their season opener; Viva la Zarzuela. It’s at the St. Lawrence Centre and features tenor Rómulo Delgado. I guess one could just about do that and one of the evening shows.
The MIR trio; Mark Skazintetsky (violin), Igor Gefter (cello) and Rachel Kerr (piano) played a programme of music by Jewish composers in the RBA at noon yesterday. Most of the music was by contemporary composers but the opening set was the Three Nocturnes of Ernest Bloch. This is superb music and it was beautifully played. The first movement; Andante, is quite elegiac but things really kick in with the Andante quieto, which contains a quite lovely melody for the cello before the final Tempestoso which fully lives up to its marking.
We went to a recital of French and Mexican vocal music at Heliconian Hall yeaterday. It was given by soprano Renée Bouthot and pianist Ana Cervantes. Far the most interesting part sof the programme were the Mexican pieces. Federico Ibarra’s 1988 setting of Tres Canciones by Lorca was really fine. The three pieces were quite varied. Canción has a complex piano part, an interesting vocal line and quite playful interaction between the two. By no means always to be found in modern art song. Canción de Cuna has a less interesting, kind of scoopy vocal line but a really virtuoso piano part while the final Canción de la muerte pequeña blends a wildly percussive piano part with dance rhythms in the vocal line. All three texts are really interesting too.
operaramblings 