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About operaramblings

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

Lost in a Russian Forest

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SONY DSCCroatian bass Goran Jurić is currently making his North American debut as Sarastro in the COC’s Magic Flute.  Today he gave a lunchtime recital with Anne Larlee in the RBA.  It was an all Russian programme; Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Sviridov.  I don’t want to do a blow by blow review because I don’t know the rep well enough and it seems a bit pointless.  Instead let’s talk about Jurić as an artist, as shown by his performance here (and not surprisingly as Sarastro).  He’s a genuine bass, no messing.  The low notes are all there and the timbre is rich and dark when he wants it to be.  But he’s also extremely lyrical.  He can lighten up without ever stopping sounding like a bass.  It’s a most pleasant combination.  He’s also a terrific storyteller.  This seems like an odd thing to say about a recital where not a word was spoken and all the songs were in a language I scarcely understand at all, yet I felt he was communicating the essence of the text with great clarity as a good lieder singer must.  Anne was great as an accompanist too.  There was quite a lot of range in the piano parts from quite delicate and playful in some of the Sviridov to cranking the pedals up to 11 in some of the Rachmaninov.  A very good way to spend one’s lunch break.

Besides, it was great to see Anne Larlee back at the Four Seasons Centre and to discover a young bass who I want to hear a lot more of.  Fortunately he’s back next season as Osmin in Entführung.

Photo credit: Karen E. Reeves

Royal Conservatory 2017/18 Koerner Hall season

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wallis-giunta-photo-dario-acostaThe Royal Conservatory has just announced its Koerner Hall line up for the 2017/18 season.  There are 23 classical and 6 jazz concerts.  This doesn’t include the Glenn Gould School or concerts in the RCM’s other halls.  Highlights from a vocal point of view are as follows:

November 10th 2017 at 8pm:  Barbara Hannigan with Reinbert de Leeuw in a mainly Second Vienna School programme.  Not to be missed if that’s your thing and it’s certainly mine.

February 14th 2018 at 8pm:  Ian Bostridge with Julius Drake in an all Schubert programme.

April 6th 2018 at 8pm:  Bernstein@100; a tribute to Lenny featuring, among others, Wallis Giunta.

April 22nd 2018 at 3pm:  Gerald Finley with Julius Drake in a varied program of art and folk songs.

April 27th 2018 at 8pm:  The Amici Ensemble with Isabel Bayrakdarian and the winners of the GGS chamber music competition.  The vocal part of the programme is all Bernstein.

May 10th 2018 at 8pm:  Not typical Opera Ramblings fare but worth a mention; Jodi Sarvall, Hespèrion XXI and Galician pipes specialist Carlos Núñez in a program of pipe music from around the western fringes of Europe.

The PDF with the full line up is here

Next week (mostly) in the RBA

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woodley

Things are still a bit quiet on the vocal music front (the lull before the storm judging by my agenda) but there are a couple of free concerts of interest at noon in the RBA next week.  On Tuesday, bass Goran Jurić, currently singing Sarastro at the COC, is teaming up with Anne Larlee in an all Russian program featuring works by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Spiridov.  Then on Thursday there’s a concert in the chamber music series featuring the members of the COC orchestra academy.  But once again, the chamber series deceives because half of the program (at least) features soprano Jaqueline Woodley in a series of Handel arias.  Later, at 7pm at The Fifth Pubhouse, the COC is hosting Opera Trivia Night with trivia master Russell Harder.  It’s free but ticketed.  Tisckets from coc.ca or the Four Seasons box office.  The COC’s Magic Flute continues with the first chance to see the alternative cast on Sunday afternoon (29th) at the Four Seasons Centre, which is pretty close to sold out.  No doubt the matinee show will be a lot of kids’ first opera.

Magic Flute revived at COC

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Last night saw the first performance of this season’s run of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the COC.  It’s a revival of the Diane Paulus 2011 production with Ashlie Corcoran as revival director.  It has a “theatre within a theatre” overlay in Act 1; it’s supposed to be an aristocratic birthday party for Pamina where the guests perform the opera, which mysteriously disappears in Act 2 though it makes an odd reprise right at the end where all the characters appear to perform a country dance.  Strip that element out and it’s a workmanlike Flute with nothing much to say but some pretty visuals.  The animals are cute and the trials scene is rather well done.  There is one notable change from 2011.  Pamina’s lurid pink Disney princess outfit is gone, replaced by something Regencyish and far less jarring.

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Workshopping The Harvester again

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stacie_3005bThis time last year I attended a workshop performance of a work in progress; Aaron Gervais’ The Harvester.  That time it was in piano score but semi staged.  Last night it was presented, at Gallery 345, in concert format but with chamber orchestra.  I’m not going to recap the plot etc because it’s all in last time’s review.  Let’s start by saying it’s coming along and I really look forward to seeing a fully staged version.

So, back to last night.  The concept is of a double bill of Schoenberg’s Erwartung in a chamber reduction followed by The Harvester so last night we started with half the Schoenberg (up to the discovery of her lover’s body).  The chamber reduction (by Aaron Gervais) for piano, three woodwinds, strings, horn and percussion works remarkably well.  The effect is similar (ironically) to Schoenberg’s chamber versions of Mahler’s songs.  Textures are clearer, if less lush, and the singer is less pushed for sheer volume which allows for a bit more subtlety.  It’s different but it works.  On this scale it’s a good fit for Stacie Dunlop; one of those singers who is an excellent musician and interpreter but is not a huge voice.

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Cav and Pag

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Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci are not only a commonly coupled pair of operas but pretty much define the genre we call verismo.  It’s a curious genre in a lot of ways.  Musically it defines a style, brought to its highest state by Puccini, that is a sort of Fukuyama-esque “end of opera” after which everything is, for a section of the opera audience, modern, inaccessible and frightening.  It’s also dramatically an attempt to get away from stories from myth and history and root the drama in “stories of everyday folk”.  Which is fine, I suppose, if one believes the only things “everyday folk” care about are female constancy and the more pagan end of Catholicism for these stories tend to be a touch unsubtle; “she done him wrong so he killed her” (and her dog and he probably crashed her truck too).  It’s actually quite ironic that Puccini, held up as the arch exponent of verismo, rarely actually goes down this path.  Il Tabarro perhaps, maybe Suor Angelica, at a stretch Tosca but in large part his material is drawn from the usual well of opera plots.  So Cav and Pag is interesting as almost pure verismo.

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COC 2017/18

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Last night the Canadian Opera Company announced the line up for the 2017/18 season.  It was all pretty much as predicted.  My predictions post got five out of six right and Dylan was right on the money down to timing.  So what do we get?

The fall season features, finally, Tim Albery’s production of Strauss’ Arabella first seen at Santa Fe.  Erin Wall, as expected, takes the title role while Jane Archibald, in one of three season appearances, sings Zdenka.  The Mandryka will be one of the few high profile imports, Tomasz Konieczny.  There are welcome appearances for David Pomery as Matteo and Claire de Sevigné as Flakermilli.  It’s a season full of Ensemble Studio graduates.  Patrick Lange conducts.  Partnering Arabella is Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore in a production by James Robinson adapted to set the piece in pre WW1 Niagara on the Lake.  Simone Osborne and Andrew Haji play Adina and Nemorino with Gordon Bintner as Belcore.  This is, I think, the first time I’ve seen husband and wife as soloists at the COC though the Pomeroys have been seen on stage together quite a few times.  Brit Andrew Shore rounds things out as Dulcemara.  Yves Abel makes his COC debut in the pit.

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Across the Channel

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Having been tipped off that yesterday’s RBA noon concert was to be a vocal recital rather than, as previously billed, a chamber concert I made the trip through the snow to catch it.  Three of the Royal Conservatory’s Rebanks fellows were singing with Helen Becqué at the piano and assorted staff and alumni added for the final number.  Attendance was a bit sparse perhaps unsurprisingly given the weather and the evident confusion.  That was a shame because it was an interesting, varied and well presented concert combining well known works with some much less well known fare.

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Tafelmusik – Beethoven Symphony No.9

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Beethoven9thThis review first appeared in the print edition of Opera Canada.

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s Beethoven cycle with conductor Bruno Weil concludes with a recording of the 9th Symphony recorded live at Koerner Hall in February 2016. It’s very much a period instruments recording. This is most noticeable in the strings where the sound is softer than a modern orchestra with less “attack” and significantly less dynamic variation. No doubt the fairly small forces used reinforce this. There are slightly more than 50 instrumentalists in total. Overall, it’s an almost Mozartian sound.

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Haruspication

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The usual haruspication ahead of the COC 2017/18 season announcement has been taking place at the Kitten Kondo.  Frankly the giblets are downright confusing this year.  There are some hot rumours and a lot of much less hot stuff leading to much speculation based on the shape of the season and past patterns.  Here’s some of the more probable stuff.  It’s well known that the COC picked up the Carsen Eugene Onegin when the Met was about to bin it so presumably they intend to actually mount it some time.  It’s got to the point where names have been associated with it in multiple places.  Braun, Radvanovsky and El-Khoury have all been mentioned.  Now, having been at the Dima concert at Koerner where the Russian chapter of Hell’s Grannies just about tore the place apart I reckon it should sell like hot blinis so a longish double cast run seems highly plausible.

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