Author Archives: operaramblings

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About operaramblings

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

In War and Peace

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in-war-and-peaceJoyce DiDonato’s latest CD In War and Peace is a compilation of baroque arias on the theme of war and peace, apparently prompted by the terrorist attacks in Paris.  The arias are divided, apparently, into the two categories and while I get that Handel’s Scenes of Sorrow, Scenes of Woe from Jeptha is “war” I’m not at all sure how Purcell’s Dido’s Lament finds itself on that side of the balance sheet.  No matter there’s lots of Handel; very well done, and quite a bit of Purcell, some of it quite little known; even better, with some Leo, Jommelli and Monteverdi along the way.

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Revive

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revive-300x300I’ve just been listening to Revive; a new recital disk from Elina Garanča.  It marks her move into more dramatic territory as she enters her fifth decade.  It also says quite a lot about how she wants to develop her career.  There’s a very personal introductory essay titled Strong Women in Moments of Weakness and it seems to me that she’s looking to find her place in the 19th century French/Italian romantic/verismo repertoire as opposed to, say, Strauss or Wagner.  Certainly the pieces on the disk represent roles like Eboli, Didon, Delila and Hérodiade, as well as some more obscure stuff like Musette from the Leoncavallo La Bohème and Anne from Saint-Saëns Henry VIII.

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Over the holidays

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raccoon-on-snowAs things will soon slow down for the holidays I am going to do one listings post from now through to the New Year.  There are of course still the TSO and Tafelmusik Messiahs.  There are also holiday concerts at Roy Thomson Hall.  New Year’s Eve sees an opera pops concert conducted by Marco Guidarini while on New Year’s Day there’s a Vienna themed extravaganza with Matthias Fletzberger conducting.

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L’Amour de Loin in HD

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Averse as I have become to the Met’s HD broadcasts the lure of Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin in a new production by Robert Lepage proved too strong.  I’m glad I went.  In fact this was probably the best Live in HD broadcast that I’ve seen.  Lepage’s production is magical and absolutely at one with the libretto and the score.  It’s deceptive simplicity mirrors the same qualities in both.  Basically we are face with bands of light (32000 LEDs) across the stage which change colour as required and provide an ethereal shimmering backdrop.  The chorus, rarely more than their heads or hands or both, appear in tight ranks from among the lights.  There’s a sort of swivelling gantry with a platform at each end that configures to be the various settings for Jaufré and Clémence and there is the Pilgrim and his/her boat.  Simple, configurable, effective and very, very beautiful.  Indeed, Lepage and his team at the top of their game.

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Tiefland

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Eugen d’Albert is largely forgotten as a composer but his seventh (of twenty) opera, Tiefland, is still performed occasionally in German speaking countries.  It’s an odd work.  The plot is melodramatic with a cloying degree of sentimentality; sort of Mascagni meets Gounod, while the music is like pastoral Wagner (think the way the woodwinds are used in Tristan) with touches of Carmen and, just occasionally, hints of Sullivan (one of d’Albert’s teachers).  For a 1903 work it feels curiously retro.

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The Lesson of Da Ji

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dajiThis review first appeared in the print edition of Opera Canada.

Alice Ping Yee Ho’s The Lesson of Da Ji, to an English libretto by Marjorie Chan, is an ambitious piece. It tells the story of the concubine Da Ji who is having an affair with the son of a local lord, Bo Yi, who is masquerading as her music teacher. The king covets the young man’s father’s land and finds out about the affair when Da Ji’s maid betrays her. He invites Bo Yi and his parents to dine. Bo Yi doesn’t show because he’s been intercepted and killed by the king’s agents. The king, painted as a rather cartoonish villain, serves the boy up as a stew to Da Ji and his parents before killing them and presenting Da Ji with the boy’s heart. Thus is order restored and betrayal punished!

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The Merchant of Venice

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André Tchaikowsky’s The Merchant of Venice was written in the years leading up to his premature death in 1982 but, despite interest from ENO in the 1980s, it did not get a full performance until David Pountney decided to stage it at the the 2013 Bregenz Festival with Keith Warner directing.  It’s hard to explain the neglect though Pountney ascribes it some degree as the fate of the emigré  (the composer being a Polish Jew domiciled in the UK).  The Merchant of Venice is a really solid piece.  It’s got all the elements; a strong story, a really interesting but not overly intimidating score and really good writing for voice (it really is singable).  It’s the right length at around two and a half hours and it doesn’t call for unreasonable orchestral or vocal forces.  John O’Brien’s libretto even manages to overcome some of the objections to staging Shakespeare’s play.  While one might consider the Shakespeare piece to be antisemitic, O’Brien’s libretto is much more clearly about anti-semitism.  There’s also a clear homoerotic element in the Antonio – Bassanio relationship and perhaps too in Portia – Nerissa.

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The news from FAWN

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As promised, I’m passing on the news I missed at FAWN the other night.  Basically, in addition to the Anna Höstman project the news concerns the further development of the Synesthesia IV project which seeks to to find a composer to develop a ballet-lyrique with FAWN.  So following on from Synesthesia IV part 1, three composers;  David Storen, Joseph Glaser and Kit Van Soden, have been selected to join FAWN for the next stage of the project: a one week improvisation workshop, during which they will work with FAWN Artistic Director and Resident Stage Director Amanda Smith, FAWN Artistic Associate Jonathan MacArthur (tenor) and dancer/choreographer Jennifer Nichols. The purpose of the workshop will be to create material through improvisation, which the composers can then use as they each write one short opera for Synesthesia IV pt. II. FAWN will present these works during their 2017/18 season.

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Second annual Electric Messiah

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Soundstreams’ Electric Messiah, now billed as “annual”, opened last night at a packed Drake Underground.  It’s substantially reworked from last year’s show though structurally it’s similar in that the same arias are sung by the same singers in the same order with similar linking sections.  The differences though are notable.  The space is configured differently with more conventional seating which makes it feel more like a concert than a happening, though there’s still lots of movement and action happening in different parts of the space.  The electro-acoustic orchestra is gone; replaced by keyboards.  John Gzowski and his electric guitar are up on stage rather than tucked away in an alcove.  The linking choral sections have been remixed and the influence of Adam Scime on that is clear.  It’s still a very interesting show and well worth seeing but I enjoyed it rather less than last year.

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Mozart 225

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mozart225Today marks the 225th anniversary of Mozart’s death.  To commemorate it Universal Records (Deutsche Grammophon and Decca basically) have put together a special commemorative edition which I have had a chance to dip into, but not much more than dip into, because it is huge.  It’s a cuboid about the size of an LP record and a little over half as deep.  It weighs 10kg.  Inside are 200 CDs containing the complete works of Mozart including juvenalia, fragments, arrangements and alternative versions.  There’s also a copy of the latest Kerchel catalogue, some prints and two very handsome hardback books; a new biography by Cliff Eisen and a second volume containing essays and work by work commentary.  What there isn’t is libretti for the vocal works but it actually gets better.  One can go to the website mozart225.com and download an app, offered in a choice of languages, with the libretti of all the works plus translation.  (You do need the code from the set to do this).  OK so I’m a bit of a gadget freak but all the Mozart libretti on my phone?  How cool is that?

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